t 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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Old Stories with New Lessons. 



SKETCHES OF SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS. 



A BOOK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 



BY iy 



BENJAMIN B. COMEGYS, 

AUTHOR OF 
'TALKS WITH BOYS AND GIRLS," "BEGINNING LIFE," "HOW TO GET ON," ETC. 



As* 



1~Z 
PHILADELPt 

THE AMEEICAN SUNDAY- SCHOOL UNION, 
1122 Chestnut Street. 




HEW YORK : 8 and 10 BIBLE HOUSE. 

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.C 6? 



Copyright, 1888, 

BY 

The American Sunday-School Union. 



DEDICATION. 



TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF ONE WHO WAS MUCH IN MY THOUGHTS WHILE 

WRITING THESE PAPERS, 

WHO WALKED WITH ME TO THE PLACE OF BUSINESS AND TO THE HOUSE OF GOD J 

MY COMPANION AND FRIEND, ON WHOM I HAD LEARNED TO 

LEAN FOR SYMPATHY AND SUPPORT; 

WHO WAS TAKEN SUDDENLY FROM MY SIDE IN HIS EARLY MANHOOD 

AND USEFULNESS TO THE COMPANIONSHIP OF ONE WHO 

LOVED HIM EVEN BETTER THAN WE DID; — 

MY ONLY SON, 

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. 



The Son of God goes forth to war, 

A kingly crown to gain : 
His blood-red banner streams afar ; 

Who follows in his train ? 
Who best can drink his cup of woe 

Triumphant over pain, 
Who patient bears his cross below, — 

He follows in his train. 

A noble army, men and boys, 

The matron and the maid, 
Around the Saviour's throne rejoice 

In robes of light arrayed. 
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven 

Through peril, toil and pain : 
O God, to us may grace be given 

To follow in their train. — Heber. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction, Our Father, . .11 

CHAPTER I. 
Abraham, 21 

CHAPTER II. 

ISHMAEL, 35 

CHAPTER III. 
Jacob and Esau, 43 

CHAPTER IV. 
Joseph, 53 

CHAPTER V. 
Moses, 63 

CHAPTER VI. 
Ruth, 87 

CHAPTER VII. 
Samuel, 97 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Shunammite's Son, 109 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Carpenter, 119 

vii 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER X. 
The Young Ruler, 129 

CHAPTER XL . 
The Woman that was a Sinner, 141 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Blind Beggar, 153 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Ten Virgins, 161 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Widow, 169 

CHAPTER XV. 
Mary and Martha, 179 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Timothy, . 189 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Paul at Miletus, 199 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Paul and Agrippa, 209 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Voyage and Shipwreck, 219 

CHAPTER XX. 
Paul and Timothy, 241 



PREFACE. 



I have one principal purpose in making this book : it 
is to do good to young people. I have had so much to do 
with them, especially in the later years of my life, that I 
have come to have something like the paternal feeling to- 
wards them ; and I am encouraged to issue this work by the 
many evidences that have come to me of the help that my 
other books have been to the young ; some of these expres- 
sions coming from persons of whom I have no other knowl- 
edge. 

The preparation of these chapters has covered much time ; 
and in many instances I have forgotten to indicate by quo- 
tation marks what has been borrowed. Without hesitation 
I acknowledge my obligations to many writers for some of 
the thoughts and even for the language in this book. 

The style of direct personal address, which is so marked, 
is the form in which the papers were originally cast, and is 
retained as not unsuited to the purpose of the book. 

Philadelphia, October 1, 1888. 



Think not that thou canst sigh a sigh, 

And thy Maker is not nigh ; 

Think not that thou canst weep a tear, 

And thy Maker is not near. 

Oh, he gives to us this joy, 

That our griefs he may destroy ; 

Till our grief is fled and gone 

He doth sit by us and mourn. — William Blake. 



Like one that waits and watches he hath sat 
As if there were none else for whom to wait, 
Waiting for us, for us, 
Who keep him waiting thus, 
And who bring less to satisfy his love 
Than any other of the souls above. — Faber. 



Am I going out into the business and turmoil of the day, when so many 
temptations may come to do less honorably, less faithfully, less kindly, less 
diligently, than the Ideal Man would have me do ? . . . Am I going to 
do a hard duty, from which I would be gladly turned aside — to refuse a 
friend's request, to urge a neighbor's conscience ? Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit. — George MacDonald. 



10 



INTRODUCTION. 



OUR FATHER. 

The Lord's Prayer is often on our lips but very little in 
our hearts, and it is most imperfectly understood. 

The Lord Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when 
he ceased his disciples came unto him. It is not likely that 
this was in a very public place, for on another occasion we 
learn that, when he withdrew for prayer, he went as far as a 
stone's throw from his companions into the deeper shade of 
the garden of Gethsemane. He was not given to praying in 
public places ; he condemned this habit in the Pharisees. 

And yet he was near enough to the disciples for them to 
observe him ; and when his prayer was ended, they came and 
asked him to teach them to pray as John also had taught his 
disciples. 

In answer to this request,, he taught them that form of 
words which has come down to us through these many cen- 
turies, and which we have now in our own language. We 
call it the Lord's Prayer. 

How long he was engaged in prayer, or what he prayed 
for, we do not know ; but if you or I had seen him as he was 
bowed on his knees, with clasped hands and face upturned to 
his Father in heaven, with what interest we should have re- 
garded him ! It is a very interesting and a very affecting 
sight to look at people who are praying. One week day, in 
the grand cathedral at Cologne, a plain woman, with what 

11 



12 OLD STORIES WITH NEW- LESSONS. 

seemed a market-basket in her hand or on her arm, came m, 
placed her basket on the stone floor, and with her face to the 
altar kneeled down and said her short prayer; then arose, 
took up her basket and passed on her way. I was there for 
another purpose. The magnificent church, the splendid archi- 
tecture, the surpassingly beautiful stained-glass windows, 
and the thought that pious men, hundreds of years ago, had 
conceived the idea of building the great church for the wor- 
ship of God, deeply impressed me; but this poor woman, 
kneeling on the stone floor and saying her prayer, almost re- 
buked me. 

If we had looked upon the Saviour as he was prayings 
should we not have wished that he might remember us in his 
prayer? We sometimes ask Christian friends to remember 
us in their prayers, but what would it have been to be re- 
membered in his prayers ? 

And yet a prayer of his is recorded, word for word, in 
which we are remembered, not by name, but as a class. In 
the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel, and in the twen- 
tieth verse, we read, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
them also who shall believe on me through their word." 
This includes you and me, if we are believers and followers 
of the Lord Jesus. 

After our Lord ceased praying his disciples came and made 
a request. They wanted to be taught how to pray. " Lord, 
teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." 

Are we to suppose that the disciples of Jesus did not know 
how to pray? Is this strange? Are there not some of us 
even in this day who do not know how to pray? And we 
know more of Christianity than the disciples of Jesus did in 
the early part of his ministry. Yet how little we know of 
the nature of prayer to God ! We say the Lord's Prayer 



OUR FATHER. 13 

over and over again ; we follow in the prayers of others ; we 
hear and are supposed to join in the prayers of the church ; 
and our utterances often mean no more to us than the parrot 
when repeating the words of its keeper. 

A young girl in a Sunday-school class that I was teaching 
lingered one day after the class was dismissed and asked me 
to teach her how to pray. She told me that she said her 
prayers every night and every morning, as she kneeled at her 
bedside, but sometimes she felt that she was not praying. 
She was only saying her prayers. 

Some people seem to be praying who are only in the atti- 
tude of prayer. You bow your heads in church, in the 
school-room, at the table ; you kneel down in the family or 
by your bedside; your thoughts wander; you are drowsy; 
you fall asleep on your knees ! How many people in church 
drop on their knees or bow their heads in their hands, and 
think little of the solemn words they are saying or to which 
they are listening ! And then how often do we pray for 
things which it would not be best for us to have ! Even in 
the first century the apostle James could say, " Ye ask and 
receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your 
pleasures." (Revised Version.) 

Our Lord answered the request of his disciples, and gave 
them a form of prayer — a model prayer. I think he did not 
intend that they should offer this prayer every time they met 
for worship or prayed in secret, though there is no objection 
to this if we wish to do so. As I understand it, he gave it 
as a model on which all prayers should be constructed. He 
begins by saying, " When ye pray, say, Our Father which art 
in heaven," as St. Luke has it ; or, " After this manner there- 
fore pray ye," as St. Matthew has it "Our Father which. 
art in heaven." 



14 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

The request which his disciples made was itself a prayer ; 
and it was answered as all real prayers are answered. The 
first words, u Our Father/' are the key which opens the door 
of heaven. Think how many people have offered this prayer ! 
Beginning with the apostles, to whom it was first taught, and 
on down through the fathers of the Church, for more than 
eighteen hundred years it has been continually used. Paul 
probably offered it in his Roman prison, shivering with the 
cold and longing for the companionship of his son Timothy. 
The martyrs in the Coliseum about to be torn in pieces by 
wild beasts, the Christian disciple chained to the stake and 
soon to be burned, and many a little child in the agonies of 
death, have offered this prayer. 

In how many languages has it been offered ! First in the 
Greek language, in which it was originally spoken, or rather 
probably in the Aramaic or Syro-chaldaic (which was the 
spoken language of that time and country); then in old 
Latin, in Syriac, in French, in Italian, in German, in Saxon, 
and down to us in English ; and now, in hundreds of the 
languages of earth, does this best of all prayers go up to God 
every day and every hour in the day. I have heard these 
sacred words as they w r ere offered out in the woods where 
Christians worshipped God in tents on the camp-ground ; I 
have joined in their use with other voyagers on the deck of 
the rolling ship on the great ocean ; I have heard them 
chanted in the cathedrals of old England over and over again 
in a single service by boys' voices ; I have heard little Roman 
Catholic children say them as their pater noster, stopping at 
the church on their way to school with their little satchels on 
their backs ; and I am sure no prayer was ever so full as this 
and so well adapted to all people everywhere. They are the 
most familiar words in the Bible. They are the first words 



OUR FATHER. 15 

we ever heard from the Bible. They are more often said 
than any other words of prayer. We cannot remember the 
time when we first heard them. It must have been as our 
mothers held us on their laps, or as we kneeled at their side 
resting our young heads on their knees. 

Everybody understands these words, " Our Father," for 
even those who have not had good fathers have known other 
boys who have. We know how fathers love their children. 
We know how children love a good father. What is a good 
father f 

A good father loves his children. They are always near 
his heart. When they are treated unkindly, how he resents 
it ! Let any one speak harshly or unjustly or even slight- 
ingly of them, how keenly he feels it ! When they do well, 
how happy he is ! In fact, most of the thrills of joy or pain 
that good parents feel come to them through their children. 

A good father is thinking about his children and planning 
for them and working for them continually. No distance is 
so great as to separate them from him in thought. He may be 
very far from home, in a strange land and alone ; he may be 
engaged all day in business or in sight-seeing ; but when he 
returns to his lodging in the evening and finds letters from 
home and sits down to read them, and the home scenes and 
home life are brought vividly before his mind, see how his 
eyes glisten, and soon the tears roll down his cheeks. The 
love of wife and children has been in his heart all day and 
all the time, but now he is no longer in his lonely lodging; 
he is at home again in thought, and the children are gathered 
round him calling him father. 

A good father teaches his children. He wants them to 
have all useful knowledge. He spares no expense in their 
education. He withholds nothing which will promote their 



16 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

advancement in the knowledge of things that will make them 
useful and happy. He is careful also that no word shall 
escape his lips, and no act find expression in his life, the imi- 
tation of which would hinder or hurt his children. 

A good father pities his children. When they are in 
trouble, he is troubled also. If they are sick, he is anxious ; 
if they are ill, he is distressed. If misfortune in any form 
befall them, he is unhappy; if they fall into crime, he hangs 
his head, his heart is broken, he wants to save them. Life to 
him after this is not worth living. In all history, in all lit- 
erature, there is nothing more sad, nothing more pathetic, 
than the story of David, who, when informed of the death 
of his son Absalom, slain in rebellion, " went up to the cham- 
ber over the gate, and wept : and as he went, thus he said, O 
my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would God I 
had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son !" 

God loves children not because they are good, for they are 
not all good, but because they are his children. A human 
father cannot help loving his children, even if they are not 
good. So God loves you and me, even if we do not yet love 
him. 

God the good Father is thinking of his children. He 
teaches them. He pities them when in trouble or sorrow. 
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him." He spares nothing, he withholds noth- 
ing, not even his well-beloved Son, to save us. 

And see what privileges his children have ! A child at 
home in his father's house has the freedom of the house. He 
goes anywhere and everywhere. No part of the house is 
closed against him. Nothing is too good for him. He is at 
home. His father loves him, and he knows it. He always 
has the audience of his parents. Other people call on bus- 



OUR FATHER. 17 

iness or socially ; they cannot be sure of a reception, but the 
son is at home ; he is of the family. 

A Roman emperor was once returning from successful war 
to the imperial city. It was a triumphal entry. The streets 
were thronged with people and lined with soldiers. The 
emperor, in his ivory chariot with gay horses, passed slowly 
through the crowded streets, receiving with evident pleasure 
the shouts of the people. Armed guards kept the passage 
clear and permitted no one to cross the street. Presently a boy 
darted through the crowd and ran up to the ivory chariot. 
The emperor stooped and lifted the boy to his arms. No 
other boy in the great city of Rome would have dared to do 
such a thing ; but this was the emperor's son : nothing was 
too bold for him. 

There is one condition, and one only, wdiich will secure to 
us the benefits of this relationship to a divine Father. There 
comes a voice from the heavenly world w T ith these words : 
" My son, give me thine heart." It is the voice of our Father 
who is in heaven. It is a father's voice. There is no reproach 
for the past, however unworthy, ungrateful or sinful the past 
may have been ; it is only for the present and the future, 
Give me thy heart, my son ! 

Do not think you can put off this subject as long as you 
please, and then take it up as you please. This is a fatal 
delusion. And even if it were possible, think how ineffably 
mean and unworthy it would be to spend life in reckless 
wickedness, and then turn to God toward the end of life and 
offer him a heart wasted and impoverished by sinful courses ! 
" Let me have my pleasures," says one (meaning sinful pleas- 
ures), — " let me have my pleasures first; let me sow my w T ild 
oats." Ah ! but remember, " whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap." If you sow wild oats, you will reap 
2 



18 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

wild oats. If you sow to the wind, you shall reap the whirl- 
wind. 

I have thus tried to present God as a Father ; as one— 

1. Whom you can love. 

2. Whom you ought to love. 

3. Whom you wish to live with in heaven. 

Oh, if I could persuade any of my readers, even one or 
two, to look up to God who is " our Father in heaven," and 
give him the heart which he so justly claims — a heart which 
can be given, but which, alas, can be withheld from him, — 
if I could prevail with one to do this, then should I bless 
God that he has given me the power to write and you the 
inclination to read these counsels. Then would you, as long 
as life lasts, find a deeper meaning in this best of all prayers. 
Then would you know, as you never yet have known, what 
it is to say, 

Our Father which art in heaven, 

Hallowed be thy name. 

Thy kingdom come. 

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 

DEBTORS. 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil: 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 
the glory, for ever. amen. 



Give us Abram's faith unshaken 

That the promise must be true, 
And what God hath undertaken 

He assuredly will do ; 
Which not only could unmoved 

Trust the covenant of grace, 
But the thing which he most loved 

At the Lord's disposal place. 



And he will come in his own time and power 

To set his earnest-hearted children free; 
Watch only through this dark and painful hour, 

And the bright morning yet will break for thee. 

— Lyra Domestica. 



He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a man of power. 

— Guthrie. 



20 



CHAPTER I. 

ABRAHAM. 

Somewhere in the far East, and far back in history, 
before the Christian era, before Moses or David — indeed, 
almost at the beginning of written history — there lived a man 
distinguished above most men that the world has known. It 
is not easy to say exactly where he lived, but it was in the 
region watered by the great rivers the Tigris and the Euphra- 
tes. It was a country where the people worshipped the sun, 
moon and stars, and this man and his family probably wor- 
shipped these objects. 

There came a call from the great God — how it came we do 
not know ; a call to Abram to leave his country and go into a 
land which should be shown to him. There seems to have 
been no questioning about the reality of the call, and no hes- 
itation in obeying it. It was a small company that set out 
from Ur of the Chaldees to begin the long journey. They 
travelled until they came to Haran, a place which we cannot 
locate with absolute certainty, and there they halted. How 
long they remained here is also quite uncertain ; but there 
Terah the father of Abram died. Then Abram, with that 
divine call still ringing in his ears, gathered his family, his 
childless wife and orphan nephew, his servants and all his 
goods, and set out anew for the land which was to be given 
to him and to his descendants. 

" Only one had heard God's call/' but that was sufficient. 
We can easily imagine the scene as they prepared to start ; 
for the customs of eastern people have come down with slight 
changes from that time to this, 

21 



22 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

The camels were collected and made to kneel down, as they 
do at this day, to receive the heavy loads that were put upon 
them. The articles of domestic use were very simple and 
few. These people did not live in houses such as ours. Most 
of them lived in tents, made of the coarsest stuff and easily 
taken down, folded and packed on the camels. The flocks 
of sheep and herds of cattle, the goats and the various domes- 
tic animals were grouped under the care of servants, each of 
whom was responsible for his charge. The travel was very 
slow, for the camels rarely went faster than a walk. Day 
after day they pursued their weary march over the sand-hills 
and the rough and rocky paths of that desolate region. If 
it was the summer season, they travelled in the early morning 
and evening ; resting during the hot midday hours under the 
shelter of the great oaks which are sometimes found on the 
slopes of the mountain districts, or under the shadow of the 
great rocks, as was most convenient. 

They must have passed near or through Damascus, that 
ancient city, one of the oldest cities of which we have any 
mention in history. Here probably Abram secured that serv- 
ant who became his faithful and trusted servant — " this Eli- 
ezer of Damascus." 

The rivers were crossed at the fords, there being no ferries 
at that time; and so they passed on until, crossing the river 
Jordan, they came into that land which God had promised. 

According to the sacred record, their first resting-place was 
at Sichem, that beautiful valley between the two mountains 
Ebal and Gerizim ; the same valley in which our Lord rested 
once at noon by the side of a well, when the woman of Sama- 
ria came and talked with him. 

How long they remained at Sichem we do not know; nor 
do we know why they left that fruitful and beautiful valley ; 



ABRAHAM. 23 

but we find them next, at the distance of a day's journey or 
so, in the open country, or on the hills between Bethel and 
Ai. And we cannot fail to recall the interesting incident 
that occurred years after this. His grandson Jacob spent an 
eventful night at or near this place ; that night when God 
was revealed to the wanderer, and his angels descended and 
ascended the ladder whose top reached up to heaven. 

Here the tents were pitched as if for a long stay ; and the 
country about here, a " high and beautiful plain, is one of 
the finest tracts for pasturage in the whole land." But 
although the land had been promised to Abram and his 
descendants, the promise was not yet to be fulfilled. There 
came a famine upon the land ; the flocks and herds suffered 
for pasturage and' water; the country w T as thinly settled, there 
was no storage of food, and the wanderer once more struck 
his tent and moved to the land of Egypt. 

And here we meet w r ith that incident in the life of the 
patriarch which discloses the first serious recorded defect in 
his character. He well knew that his coming to Egypt at 
the head of a large caravan would attract much attention, 
and he naturally feared that the appearance of his wife 
among such a people might lead to acts of violence toward 
himself or toward her. Failing to trust God who had so 
strangely called him, and who had led him so long and so 
safely in his journey, he deliberately agreed with Sarah his 
wife that she should pass as his sister. There is no excuse 
for his cowardice and falsehood. 

But the fraud did not succeed ; no fraud succeeds, except 
it may be for a time; it is truth only that prevails. The king 
discovered the deception and resented it, and drove Abram out 
of his country. 

Back again across the weary desert went Abram and his 



24 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

wife and all that he had, and Lot, his nephew, and all that 
he had, through the south country up to Bethel, which he 
had left to go to Egypt. The famine had passed ; the pas- 
tures were green again ; the streams were running with water 
and the flocks and herds had greatly multiplied. Now a new 
difficulty arose. The servants of Lot and the servants of 
Abram, jealous each of the other, jealous of the water springs 
and of the rich pasturage, quarrelled fiercely and bitterly. 
A separation was proposed. Abram, with great magna- 
nimity, gave Lot his choice, either to remain where he was, 
in which case Abram would go, or to go anywhere he liked 
in the land. Lot, with characteristic selfishness, chose the 
rich lands in the Jordan valley, and departed to dwell in the 
cities there, while Abram remained up in the hills, content to 
live in tents and move from place to place, as he had always 
lived. 

Then God spoke again to Abram ; and as if in commend- 
ation of his unselfish course (for God does most certainly 
commend unselfishness), he tells him to look around from the 
hills where he stood, for the whole land as far as he could 
see would be his and his children's forever. This led Abram 
to break up his Bethel camp again, and move southward 
toward Hebron. 

Years seem to have passed, and the flocks and herds of 
the great chieftain were greatly multiplied, and his large 
family so increased that they numbered a small army, ready 
at short notice to take the field at their master's bidding. 

An opportunity came. There was an invasion of kings 
from the East. They reached the fertile valley of the Jor- 
dan ; they captured and pillaged the cities of Sodom and 
Gomorrah ; they carried off everything of value, and among 
the prisoners they took Lot and his family. News of the 



ABRAHAM. 25 

disaster reached Abram; he gathered his servants such as 
were trained to battle, as many as three hundred and eighteen, 
and pursued the retreating foragers as far north as the ex- 
treme limits of the land, almost to the mountains of Leb- 
anon ; recaptured the prisoners, Lot and others, and brought 
back the booty which the invaders had stolen. But he re- 
fused, with the same generous unselfishness as he had shown 
in the separation from Lot, to receive any reward for his 
great services, although urged to do so by the king of Sodom. 

I pass over the incident of the meeting with Melchizedek 
because there is not space in so brief a chapter to describe it, 
and because the story is quite full of incident even without 
this. 

Now again God appears to him. It seems to have been a 
time of depression to the patriarch. Again and again had 
the land been promised to him and to his descendants. He 
was without children. He began to be afraid that he had 
not heard the voice of the Lord aright; else why had he 
so long delayed the fulfillment of his word? 

It was night; all was quiet in the tents of the sleepers; 
the cattle were safe in the folds. Grave thoughts crowded 
on the mind of the patriarch; he reviewed his life, the 
strange way in which God had led him, the promises yet un- 
fulfilled, when suddenly an angel (as Sir Frederick Leighton 
presents the scene in his striking picture) stands at the side 
of Abram, lifts the folds of his tent, leads him out in the dark 
night, and says, " Fear not, Abram : I am thy shield, and 
thy exceeding great reward." But Abram said, " What wilt 
thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my 
house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" 

Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, " This 
shall not be thine heir." You shall have one of your own. 



26 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

" Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able 
to number them." And in that cloudless night and clear 
atmosphere the stars were indeed innumerable. Can you 
count them? As he looked up in amazement toward 
heaven the Lord said to Abram, " So shall thy seed be." 

And Abram believed the Lord. 

But as if this were not enough, God made a special cove- 
nant with his servant, and in that solemn and startling inci- 
dent of the divided carcasses of the heifer, the goat, the ram 
and of the birds, and the burning lamps passing up and down 
between the pieces, he confirmed his promise with a more 
sure word of prophecy. 

This certainly should have convinced the patriarch that he 
might trust the word of the Lord. But his faith was not yet 
strong. He was still childless ; he was growing old, and in 
a weak and evil hour he yielded to suggestions which were 
not from the Lord, and sowed discord between himself and 
his wife. A child was born, named Ishmael, but it was not 
Sarah's child ; it was not the heir. 

Time passed ; the boy Ishmael grew through the years of 
infancy and youth up to boyhood, and began to be about 
eleven years of age. But Abram knew he was not to be the 
heir ; and God appeared again, changed Abram's name, and 
renewed his promise to make him a great nation. 

One day about noon Abraham was sitting in the door of 
his tent, sheltered from the intense heat of the fiery sun, 
when three angels suddenly appeared in human form and 
talked with him. The simple and beautiful form of the 
story leads us to suppose that such visits were not uncom- 
mon. With true eastern hospitality, Abraham runs out to 
meet them, prostrates himself before them, invites them into 
the tent, washes their feet, and sets food before them — bread 



ABRAHAM. 27 

and flesh. Then they announced the wonderful fact that 
Isaac is to be born, the real heir whom Abraham had so long 
expected. After this" the men arose and looked toward Sodom, 
and Abraham went with them a part of the way. 

Late in the same day two of these strangers appeared at 
the gate of Sodom. The third tarried, and " Abraham stood 
yet before the Lord." What a scene, what a conversation, 
was that ! The patriarch is told that the cities of the plain, 
Sodom and the others, were to be destroyed. Then he draws 
near, and in a dialogue certainly the most remarkable on 
record he remonstrates with the Lord on what he is about 
to do : u Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the 
wicked?" The answer is, if there be fifty righteous men 
in Sodom the place shall be spared. But Abraham goes on, 
and the Lord bears with his expostulation, his importunity, 
his intercession, until the number is reduced to forty, to 
thirty, to twenty, to ten, saying, " I will not destroy it [the 
city] for ten's sake." 

This ended the audience ; " the Lord went his way," and 
Abraham was left alone. But there were not ten righteous 
men in Sodom, and the next day the cities of the plain were 
overwhelmed in a deluge of fire. Lot, however, was saved, 
for the two angels took him and his wife and his two daugh- 
ters and dragged them away from the doomed city. 

Soon after this, and for no apparent reason, Abraham 
again broke up his camp and moved toward the west or 
southwest. Possibly the awful destruction of the cities of 
the plain had something to do with this change. He left 
Hebron, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, tenting in 
Gerar among the Philistines. 

And now he falls into the same folly and sin that he had 
committed in Egypt years before. This grew out of his want 



28 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

of faith in God's word and promise. He told Abimelech, 
the king, that Sarah was his sister ; the same fraud that he 
perpetrated upon the king of Egypt. But God overruled 
this also, telling the king that the woman with Abraham was 
his wife, and that the king must not touch her. Notwith- 
standing this strange introduction, the king treated Abraham 
well and permitted him to remain in the country. 

We find Abraham shortly after this at Beer-sheba, a bor- 
der city of the Philistines and the tribes of Canaan, Here 
probably Isaac was born, the child of promise, the real heir. 
It was a time of great rejoicing in all the families of the 
camp ; for now it seemed that the promise so long delayed — 
the promise renewed by the three angels — was at last fulfilled. 

It can easily be supposed, however, that the birth of Isaac 
would bring no joy to Hagar and her son Ishmael. While 
he was the only son he seemed to be the heir ; when another 
boy came, that dream vanished. The boy Ishmael, now 
about twelve years old, was jealous of the new-comer ; and 
when the young child was weaned, the big brother ridiculed 
and mocked him. Sarah the mother, regarding this as the 
beginning of discord between the boys, determined that the 
son of the slave mother, although her husband's son, should 
not live any longer in the camp, and insisted that he and his 
mother should be driven away. In a weak moment in Abra- 
ham's life he yielded to the passionate demands of Sarah, and 
the poor slave mother and her helpless boy were cruelly 
driven into the wilderness. But God " heard the voice of the 
lad/' and delivered him, and made of him also a great nation. 

Meanwhile Isaac grew up toward manhood. It was a time 
of peace and great prosperity. It was, again, a time of long 
silence. But the silence was to be broken, and broken in the 
strangest way. The word of the Lord came again to Abra- 



ABRAHAM. 29 

ham, and in most startling and terrible words. He was told 
to take his son, his only son, the son whom he loved, the son 
in whom and through whom all the families of the earth 
should be blessed ; this son he was commanded to take to a 
mountain far away and there kill him and offer his body on 
an altar as a burnt offering. 

With the same implicit obedience with which Abraham 
obeyed the first call to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldees 
did the old patriarch take the lad in the early morning from 
his mother to the distant mountain. What could he say to 
the mother as a reason for taking away her son ? What could 
he say to the boy ? It was a three-clays journey. What was 
the conversation by the way ? How r could he so calmly lead 
the unsuspecting boy to his death ? How could he believe 
that it was a true word of the Lord that he was obeying ? 

But he did believe ; and when they came near the place, 
he took the wood which he had brought to kindle a fire for 
the burnt offering, and put it on Isaac's shoulders, and leav- 
ing the two servants who had come with them, probably lest 
they should prevent his purpose, he took the fire and a knife, 
and the father and the son went to the place appointed. As 
they passed along, the curiosity of the lad was thoroughly 
aroused. He watched with the deepest interest all these 
preparations ; and presently he broke out with that question 
which seems to us so plaintive, so piteous : " My father . . . 
behold the fire and the wood : but where is the lamb for a 
burnt offering ?" The question must have wrung the father's 
heart; but the answer showed an unswerving faith: "My 
son, God will provide himself a lamb." Then the old man 
gathered stones and built the altar, and laid the wood stick 
by stick on the heap of stones. Then he bound the boy, and 
laid him on the wood on the altar. Then he seized the knife, 



30 OLD STOETES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

when a loud voice arrested him : " Abraham, Abraham." It 
was the voice of the Lord again, in infinite mercy. The father's 
faith was tried ; it had proved true. There was no need of 
further trial : God had provided a sacrifice ; Isaac was saved. 

I need say little more. They returned to their home. How 
the mother's heart must have been stirred when she heard the 
tale ! Isaac grew to be a man. His mother died ; a burial- 
place was provided in the cave of Maehpelah, and there she 
was laid to rest. 

Then Eliezer, the trusted servant of Abraham, was sent to 
the far land of Mesopotamia, his native land, to bring a wife 
for Isaac, and Rebekah was brought (not unwillingly, it 
seems). And the story is one of the most simple and beau- 
tiful in the Bible. What remains of the life of the patriarch 
need not be here described. When he died, Ishmael came 
from his wandering desert life. He and Isaac buried their 
father by the side of Sarah in Maehpelah. 

This is but a glimpse of the life of the first of the patri- 
archs. If it shall lead any of you to read it carefully in your 
Bibles, I shall be more than gratified. There is hardly any- 
thing in our language more beautiful. Although Abraham 
was an explorer, a pioneer, a prince, the head of a great tribe 
and nation — a man of large wealth and influence — he will be 
remembered most of all for his religious character ; for, not- 
withstanding his many faults, he was a religious man. 

He believed God's word. That word came to him at many 
times, in visions and dreams by day and by night. He 
believed it, though he did not always follow it. His faith 
in God's promise was such that in some mysterious way it 
was accounted to him for righteousness. 

He obeyed God's commands. He did not stop to count 
the cost of obedience. When the command came to leave 



ABRAHAM. 31 

his home and go out into a country of which he could know 
nothing, he gathered his family and departed. Up and down 
in that strange land he wandered, pitching his tent here and 
there as he seemed to be led by the indications of Providence, 
twice at least going beyond the boundaries of the country 
which his descendants were to call their own. 

So implicit was his obedience that even when the great 
trial came — when his faith was subjected to the severest pos- 
sible test, even to slaying his only son — he did not flinch. 
His hand was raised to strike the fatal blow. Do you won- 
der that the Arabs from that day to this, over a large part 
of Asia and Africa, call him, as our own Scriptures call him, 
the friend of God ? He was indeed the founder of the Jewish 
Church, through which comes to us our common Christianity. 

One thought in conclusion. The Lord who called Abra- 
ham to his service still lives and reigns, the same yesterday, 
to-day and forever. He never changes. He rules in the 
armies of heaven and among men in our world. He calls 
upon us now, as thousands of years ago he called upon the 
sons of men. He calls upon you, not to join this church or 
that church merely, but to believe in him and obey him. He 
calls not in visions and voices from heaven, but through the 
Holy Scriptures, by his providence, by his Spirit and by the 
lips of his servants. He calls you to come away from evil 
company, from all sin. He calls you to come to him, to love 
him. Surely some of you have heard him, in the still hours 
of the night, on your sick-beds, in the death of friends, by 
some word spoken in his name, by some passage of Holy 
Scripture, by some prayer offered to his throne. Have you 
not heard him ? 

Do you intend to believe in him ? Do you intend to obey 
him ? Do you think you can afford to turn away from his 



32 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



call ? You are expecting some day to go out into the world 
and make your way there, fighting the many evil things that 
will oppose you, and you will need help, human and divine. 
Do you think you can take the risk of saying or thinking, 
" I don't care ; I don't feel the need of this divine help ; I 
will not have this King to rule over me"? 




Hebron and Machpelah, where Abraham was Buried. 



Many a languid prayer 



Has reached thee from the wild 
Since the lorn mother, wandering there, 

Cast down her fainting child, 
Then stole apart to weep and die, 
Nor knew an angel form was nigh 
To shew soft waters gashing by 

And dewy shadows mild. — Keble. 



For whom the heart of man shuts out, 
Straightway the heart of God takes in, 

And fences them all round about 

With silence 'mid the world's loud din. — Lowell. 



Hurt no man more 
Than you would harm your loving natural brother 
Of the same roof, same breast. If any do, 
Albeit he think himself at home with God, 
Of this be sure, he is whole worlds away. — Tennyson. 



34 



CHAPTER II. 

ISHMAEL. 

Ax old man, married but childless, dwelling in tents in 
the plain of Mamre, has been promised by God that he shall 
be the father of a great nation ; of the greatest of all nations. 
He is rich and powerful, the head of a great tribe which goes 
up and down in the land where he pleases, and pitches his 
tents and folds his flocks in the midst of the choicest pas- 
tures. After a long time his heart is gladdened; for, as it 
seems to him, the promise is about to be fulfilled by the birth 
of a son. The boy is reared as the heir of his father; — 
although his mother is a slave. There appears to be no 
other way by which the succession from father to son can be 
secured ; and it becomes an accepted fact in the household 
that Ishmael is to be the heir of Abraham, and that through 
him the great nation is to be built up. At about fifteen years 
of age, by a ceremonial and formal rite, he is publicly received 
among the chosen people of God, and is regarded as the future 
head of the tribe when Abraham shall have finished his days. 
But another son is promised to Abraham, and this one by his 
beloved wife. And the whole condition of things is changed. 
Ishmael is not to be the heir ; he is not to be the father of 
the faithful ; he is to be set aside. The aged father loves his 
first-born with a peculiar love, and cannot bear to think that he 
is to be no longer regarded as the centre of his hopes for the 
future of his family. " To let Ishmael go, in order to look 
for another, when it seemed so against nature and reason that 
any other should be born, was the severest strain to which 
even this hero of faith had yet been subjected. In that 

35 



36 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

plaintive, clinging cry of fatherhood, i that Ishmael might 
live before thee!' we hear with what a painful rending of heart 
the man tore himself from the loves and anticipations of a 
dozen years, to school himself into the expectation of a gift, 
new, strange and unheard-of — the gift of a miraculous 
child."* 

When the new son Isaac is born and grows from infancy 
to childhood, trouble begins between the two boys ; which 
ends in the elder, Ishmael, being sent away from his father's 
house, and all his expectations of being the heir destroyed ; 
and Ishmael goes away into the wilderness, where, after almost 
perishing for lack of water, he finds a home among the men 
of the desert and becomes an archer, and founds a family of 
his own ; but very unlike that which he thought was prom- 
ised him. We know but little of him after this, except that 
he came back again to his father's burial, which was in the 
field of Ephron and in the cave of Machpelah. 

When it is revealed to Abraham that the promise is to be 
fulfilled in Isaac and not in his first-born son, and that his 
plans for his oldest boy all go for nothing, he breaks out into 
that bitter cry, " O that Ishmael might live before thee !" 

It is interesting to know that the first recorded prayer in 
the Bible is a prayer of a father for a son, an only son. (See 
Gen. 15:2; 17:18.) 

It was not a prayer for life merely, although he asks that 
Ishmael may live. The lad was not sick, and there was no 
apparent or immediate apprehension that he would be in 
danger, or that his life was in peril. It was not the prayer 
of a father at the bedside of his dying son. Many a parent 
has hung over a dying child and cried out in bitter agony 
that the life might be spared. There are many such scenes 

* Dr. Oswald Dykes. 



ISHMAEL. 37 

doubtless to-day. I know of a young man whose mother 
has hung over him for long weeks, away from home and 
among strangers ; who sees him struggling with a most cruel 
and painful disease, which is torturing the poor lad until he 
screams out with pain that is absolutely intolerable ; and the 
prayer of that mother goes up to God every day, and many 
times a day, " O that my son may live !" 

The prayer of Abraham for Ishmael was not a prayer for 
life then, as we generally understand the word ; it was a 
prayer for life in the highest and best sense, not merely for 
his person, but for his posterity ; not merely that his life may 
be preserved, but that he may live and prosper : u O that 
Ishmael may live before thee V 

The prayer was answered (all true prayers are answered), 
but not as Abraham asked. Ishmael did live; he became 
the head of a great tribe, whose sons are, even at this day, 
living in and near the country from which the young Ishmael 
was driven out from his father's house. 

The story suggests some thoughts which I wish to apply 
to you. 

All who have the care of the young are anxious that they 
should live in the highest and best way. The anxiety is not 
merely that your lives should be spared so that you may 
grow up to be men and women ; most of you will probably 
live to maturity ; but the desire is that you should live before 
God ; and this was Abraham's prayer for Ishmael. If you 
are sick, and dangerously sick, everything is done to have 
you recovered from sickness ; that you shall all live not only, 
but live before God. Now r of course we know that all lives 
are in God's presence ; that nothing can be hid from him ; 
but there is a special sense in which persons can live before 
him, and it is this that is desired for you. 



38 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

It is quite possible for people to live without God in the 
world ; that is, to live without caring for him at all. It is 
quite possible to spend days and weeks without lifting up a 
prayer or a thought to God. It is quite possible to arise in 
the morning and go through the day, at your work, in the 
schools or elsewhere, and among your companions, and forget 
entirely that the great God is with you all the time, looking 
upon you, taking care of you, hearing all your words (and 
you know that some of these words are utterly unfit to be 
heard by any person, much less by him) ; I say, it is quite 
possible for you to go through all this and never have a 
thought of the great God. Alas ! this is not living in a true 
and good sense ; it is living as if you knew not God and 
cared not for him. Surely this is not what Abraham meant 
when he prayed unto God, " O that Ishmael might live 
before thee \" 

So sure am I that no life can be what it ought to be in this 
world, without the knowledge and the love of God — that no 
boy or girl can hope to be successful in any good sense with- 
out this knowledge and love of God — that I am constrained 
now, and always when I think of you, to say as the old 
patriarch said, O that these boys and these girls, my readers, 
might live before God ! 

This, however, is something which cannot be forced upon 
you ; no laws, however strict, can make people good. If we 
are not living as we ought to live ; if we are not doing our 
duty from day to day in an honest spirit ; if we are not trying 
to be what we ought to be, in our own minds and strength — 
asking strength from above to help us — it is in vain to hope 
that we shall be any better than we have been. If our lives 
have not been good and true lives, no appeals that I can 
make, or that any other person can urge, will ever make you 



ISHMAEL. 39 

any better, without the help of God, and he is not likely to 
come to your help unless you ask him. 

When I see, as I so often see, young persons living wicked 
and utterly worldly lives, forgetting all the good counsels 
that have been given them, with no respect for anything that 
is good, defying the authority of their parents and superiors, 
going to places where everything that they hear and see is 
corrupting and debasing, and reading books and papers which 
fill the mind with polluting thoughts, giving themselves up 
to drinking habits, and ready to break any law, human or 
divine, — I feel that this prayer should be offered by all 
devout and earnest hearts, O that these young people might 
live before God ! 

And I come to you with this prayer in my heart for you. 
I can't help thinking that there are many of my readers who 
wish to lead a new life, and who have some desire to live 
before God. Surely some have learned that sin is an evil 
and a bitter thing. There must be some that are sick of it 
and tired of it, and who would turn away from it if you only 
knew how. 1 believe if I were dealing with you separately, 
if I could take your hand and look you closely in the face, 
and should ask you if you did not want to lead a better life, 
I believe you would say yes. 

Let me assure you then that it is quite possible, nay, it is 
certain, that you can lead a better life if you will only deter- 
mine to do so, with the help of God. It needs no long 
preparation, no great and anxious struggle, to make this 
decision. There is no need of suffering, or of groping in 
darkness, and putting it off until it shall seem easier to do 
than it is now. All this is unnecessary and worse than use- 
less. It is only necessary that you should come now to God 
your Father, in the name of Jesus Christ his Son, and ask 



40 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



God for his sake to receive you, and forgive you, and make 
you his obedient, loving child. And if you do this from the 
heart, and with your whole heart, keeping back nothing, 
making a full surrender, you may be sure that he will give 
you a new heart and so help you to serve him. 




Well at Beer-sheba. 



We barter life for pottage ; sell true bliss 
For wealth or power, for pleasure or renown. 

Thus, Esau-like, our Father's blessing miss, 

Then wash with fruitless tears our faded crown. — Keble. 



Nor deem the irrevocable Past 

As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 
If, rising on its wrecks, at last 

To something nobler we attain. — Longfellow. 



Sick of my days, 
I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die ; 
Bat at Luz God came to me ; in my heart 
He put a better mind, and showed me how, 
While we discern it not and least believe, 
On stairs invisible betwixt his heaven 
And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth 
Celestial messengers of loftiest good 
Upward and downward pass continually.— A. H. Clough. 



42 



CHAPTER III. 

JACOB AND ESAU. 

Two boys were playing about the door of their father's 
tent in the old fields of Beer-sheba. It was a place of wells 
of sweet water and rich pastures for flocks and herds. These 
boys were brothers. Both had the same father, Isaac, and 
the same mother, Rebekah. 

Their father was a man of substance; rich, indeed, for 
those days, quiet in his ways, thoughtful and religious in his 
life, not remarkable for any specially strong traits of charac- 
ter. The mother was from a country far from Canaan, and 
she seems never to have forgotten the home of her childhood. 
Among other defects of character, she made the mistake, not 
altogether unknown in our days, of loving one of her sons 
more than the other, and of allowing her preference to be 
known. 

It is easy to imagine these two boys growing up together. 
They had no sisters. The flocks and herds which were about 
them always, made them well acquainted with the dumb 
creatures. Very early they must have learned to ride on the 
beasts of burden, as boys do now who are brought up in the 
Country. The kids, the lambs, the young calves, must have 
been their playmates ; and we do not like to believe that they 
treated the young things with cruelty. They did not go to 
school. There were no school-books, no school-teachers then, 
and all that they learned came from the lips of parents and 
associates and from observation. 

As they grew out of childhood, the characters of these two 
boys began to develop. Esau, the elder, was a wild, rough, 

43 



44 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

restless boy, never satisfied with the quiet life of home. He 
wished to be out in the fields or off in the desert, associating 
with men and hunting wild animals. His bow and his spear 
were easier to handle than the things that belonged to the 
tent, the flock and the herd. 

Does it not seem strange that his father Isaac, a man of 
peace, so quiet, so much at home that most of his life was 
spent within the circle of a few miles, — does it not seem 
strange that he should have loved Esau more than he loved 
his other son, Jacob ? And does it not seem strange that the 
mother, Rebekah, who was so indiscreet and scheming and 
deceitful, should have loved the quiet, thoughtful, almost 
effeminate Jacob more than the bold, manly, reckless, way- 
ward Esau ? But so it is that we are often drawn to our 
opposites in friendship and affection. 

The mother was Rebekah. Her name has come down to 
us as a type of all that is pure and faithful in the marriage 
relation. Well do Isaac and Rebekah deserve this good rep- 
utation. But alas for the children who are trained by an 
indiscreet mother ! 

As the boys grew to be men, their real natures were more 
fully acted out. Esau, the elder, rough, wild, restless, gave 
himself up to the pleasures of the chase ; and the roving, 
unsettled life that his descendants have led from that day to 
this (some four thousand years) shows how this love of rov- 
ing and of freedom has been perpetuated. 

Let us look at the distinguishing traits in the characters 
of these two brothers, and see what contrasts there can be in 
children of the same parents and brought up in the same 
family. 

Esau was frank, generous, free-handed, light-hearted, care- 
less of the future, living for present gratification. Do you 



JACOB AND ESAU. 45 

know anybody like this ? He was satisfied with plenty of 
corn and wine and the wild game that his hunting brought 
him. He was a hunter, a rover, a man of the field and the 
desert, enjoying the pleasures of the chase, content with 
mere present possession, living for this world only, with no 
feeling of a present, a living God. Yet the old father loved 
his willful and vagrant boy, and it is almost a wonder that 
his mother did not love him more than she loved his brother. 

Esau was well aware that he was the elder brother, that 
the birthright was his, that he was entitled to inherit the 
father's blessing, and that he was to be the head of the tribe ; 
but he cared little for that. One day, on returning empty- 
handed from the chase, weary and faint and almost famished 
for food, he found his brother Jacob, who had just cooked 
and was enjoying some vegetable soup. In his tired and ex- 
hausted condition he had barely strength to gasp out, Give 
me some of that red, that red. His mean and crafty brother, 
taking advantage of Esau's helplessness, offered to let him 
have the savory food if Esau would give him in exchange 
his birthright ; and the foolish Esau sold his birthright for a 
mess of pottage, and Esau ate and drank and " rose up and 
went his way : thus Esau despised his birthright." It was 
the act of a moment, the gratification of hunger ; but it was 
a turning-point in his life, and he never could recall it, 
though he tried to do so with tears. 

A few years after this the willful, wayward youth married, 
against the wish of his parents, bringing into the family a 
woman of a strange and hostile people, which was what 
might have been expected of one who lived for this world 
only. 

When his father was getting old and his sight was failing, 
he asked Esau, the hunter, to bring him some venison ; and 



46 OLD STOEIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Esau started off to hunt it. Now appears the crafty, deceit- 
ful mother. She knew that Esau had been cheated out of 
his birthright, but the old father did not know it, and Re- 
bekah seized upon this opportunity to seal the transaction 
with the father's blessing. She told Jacob to kill a kid, and 
she would cook it; and she took some of Esau's clothing 
and put it on Jacob, and put on his hands and arms and 
about his neck the skin of the kid just killed ; and Jacob 
brought the cooked meat, and, with disguised dress, he pre- 
sented himself before his old, blind father. Isaac was sur- 
prised that his son could have returned so soon from the 
chase. He was in doubt. Could it be Esau ? But he felt 
the rough, hairy hands and neck, and said, " The voice is 
Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." And 
then, without any further question, he ate the savory food, 
and gave the younger son the blessing that belonged to the 
elder. Jacob was successful in the outrageous fraud, and the 
mother's ambition seemed to be gratified. 

But presently Esau comes in. He has been successful. 
He has caught or killed an antelope ; he has cooked it ; he 
brings it to his father. Ah ! the blind old man perceives his 
mistake. He knows that he has been cheated and deceived 
by his wife and his younger son. But it is too late. The 
blessing of the first-born cannot be recalled. Then Esau 
breaks out into that great and exceedingly bitter cry, " Bless 
me, even me also, O my father ! Hast thou but one blessing, 
my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father!" An- 
other but a very different blessing was given to Esau. It 
was not that which he had lost. 

There can be no peace in the family after this cruel and 
dreadful wrong ; and Esau determined to nurse his wrongs 
until the opportunity comes to revenge himself by the mur- 



JACOB AND ESAU. 47 

der of his brother Jacob. The mother learns this, and Jacob 
is sent away, a fugitive. 

Esau, smarting under the outrage which his mother and 
brother have inflicted on him, finds his way into the desert, 
and becomes the head of a great tribe, and is estranged from 
his father's house and his native land. 

Turn now to the other boy, Jacob. He is the home boy ; 
quiet, thoughtful, timid, but crafty and mean. In his early 
life there is not a single noble or generous trait. His moth- 
er's influence over him seems to have been most unhappy, 
and his life was full of trouble. 

The first great wrong recorded of him was the advantage 
he took of his brother Esau's extreme need, robbing him of 
his birthright. He could have done Esau no greater wrong 
than this, and the way in which he did it made it worse. 

The second great wrong was the gross deception practiced 
upon the old father in cheating Esau out of the blessing 
belonging to the first-born. 

See how dearly he paid for all this ! He is driven from 
his father's house by fear of his brother's vengeance; he 
becomes a fugitive ; the plotter, the deceiver, is interrupted in 
his wrong-doing ; he sets out on a long journey ; he finds a 
home among his mother's kindred, who are no better than 
she is. They cheat him, and he cheats them ; and after re- 
peated frauds on both sides and long years of service, he leaves 
them to return to his native land, hoping his injured brother 
Esau has forgotten the great wrong done him. He learns 
that Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred armed men, 
perhaps to destroy him. He is filled with alarm, and, coward 
as he is, tries to make it up by appeasing Esau with large 
presents of cattle. To his surprise, Esau at first declines the 
presents, and falls on his brother's neck and kisses him. 



48 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Look at Jacob's later life. His sons and daughters give 
him endless trouble, and, after years of wandering and 
exile, he dies in a strange land, far away from his home. 

But, with all these faults of character, and they are very 
many and very great, he believed in God. In his flight 
from home, in the night, at Bethel, the angels of God met 
him, and God talked with him. On his way home, after the 
years of exile and hardship among his mother's kindred, the 
angels of God met him and protected him and blessed him. 
We cannot help wondering how such a man could have found 
favor with God, so that he should say by one of his prophets, 
" Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." 

The answer is that the grace of God is able to make of the 
" worm Jacob " one who feared and loved him. That timid, 
crafty, suspicious man was changed. The dross of his char- 
acter was purged away. He was purified; he was made 
better. " The struggle of the baser elements of his character 
resulted in the triumph of the nobler;" and the cringing, 
cowardly man of the world becomes the strong man of God. 

It is a most wonderful triumph of grace, but not more so 
than is often seen in our time. The grace of God in the 
gospel of Christ can and does save the vilest, the most help- 
less of men and women. 

In all Jacob's unworthiness he never lost sight of God. 
He prayed to God, he acknowledged God, he feared God. 
He had a fixed purpose, though beset by much that was 
wrong. 

Esau, the bold, dashing, generous Esau, lived entirely for 
this world, having no thought of God, and, so far as we 
know, never offering one prayer to God. He might have 
been a splendid fellow. He had many excellent traits. He 
was glad to gratify his father by seeking his favorite food ; 



JACOB AND ESAU. 49 

he loved his brother, who had so cruelly wronged him ; but 
his good traits, his amiable qualities, were unavailing for 
want of faith. 

Such is a very brief sketch of two lives, that began at the 
same time, that were trained by the same father and mother, 
with the same advantages, and that grew wider and wider 
apart as they grew older. 

Twice, and twice only, as far as we know, did these broth- 
ers meet after the great wrong was done. Once, as Jacob 
was on his way home with his great family of flocks and 
herds, when Esau behaved so handsomely ; and once again, 
at the funeral of their old father. After this we hear noth- 
ing of Esau, except that he returned to his wild and wander- 
ing life in the desert and in the strongholds of the mountains. 

What lessons may the story bring to us ? 

1. Good-hearted, generous, amiable traits of character do 
not of themselves make good men. They do make popular 
and sometimes useful men. It is a fine thing to be w r ell 
thought of, to be above doing a mean, tricky thing, to be 
ready to help others when it costs nothing or does not require 
self-restraint, to behave one's self well because " it pays/' so to 
speak ; but unless one is controlled by principle, that is, the 
determination to do right because it is right, and at whatever 
cost, all this amounts to nothing when we give account to 
God. Esau had many admirable qualities, but he was, at 
the best, only a man of the world ; and though he became 
rich and powerful and the head of a great tribe, he probably 
never forgot that he sold all that was most dear and manly 
and noble for a mess of pottage, for the gratification of his 
appetite. 

2. No matter how low one has sunk in falsehood and 
fraud and dishonesty and vileness, the grace of God can 

4 



50 OLD STOKIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

recover the sinner. It may be necessary, as in Jacob's case, 
that the discipline must be long and painful ; yet God is able 
to make a man even out of a worm, "the worm Jacob." 
What the process was, how sorely Jacob was tried and pun- 
ished, we know only in part j but the result was that Jacob 
was saved — saved " so as by fire," purified, made new. He 
even prevailed with God in prayer, and became one of God's 
own chosen, favorite people. What but the grace of God 
could redeem such a sinner ! 

I say then finally, if any of you are slaves of evil habits, 
whether they be habits of thought or speech or life, who feel 
the bondage and would be delivered, who know you are sin- 
ners and are ashamed of it, and who long to lead a better 
life, if you only knew how or if you only could, let me 
assure you that you may be delivered if you really wish it, 
by asking God to save you for the sake of Jesus Christ, the 
Redeemer. 




Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem. 



My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure. — Tennyson. 



God's saints are shining lights ; who stays 

Here long, must pass 
O'er dark hills, swift streams, and steep ways 

As smooth as glass. 
But these all night, 

Like candles, shed 
Their beams, and light 

Us unto bed. — Vattghan. 



Cedars were these in God's fair garden — constellations in the firmament 
of Christian nobleness. Clean hands had they, and pure hearts ; and they 
spake the truth, and did the thing that was right, and never slandered, and 
did not think much of themselves, but were lowly in their own eyes ; and 
therefore they did not fall. — Farrar. 



52 



CHAPTER IV. 

JOSEPH. 

I will tell you of a young man who had the greatest pos- 
sible difficulties in his way in early life, but who lived nobly 
and died happily. He was an eminently successful man. 

In a rich, deep, well-watered valley a few miles north of 
the town of Samaria, a lad of seventeen years or thereabouts 
was standing at the bottom of a wide dry well and leaning 
against its side. He had been cast into that pit by his broth- 
ers, who were feeding their flocks in the valley, and who had 
been so long away from home that their father had sent this 
lad to look for them. He had found them after a long 
search ; but instead of a kind, affectionate greeting from 
them, he found them ready to put him to death. For some 
time before this he had some remarkable dreams. These he 
told to his brothers, and they did not like them. Besides 
this, some of his brothers had been so unblushingly wicked 
that this son had felt bound to inform the father of it. They 
gave him no cordial greeting, therefore, but at once began 
to devise some means of putting him out of the way. One 
said, "Let us slay him"- but another said, "Let us not kill 
him, . . . but cast him into this pit." Some intended to let 
him starve there, and then tell the old father that some evil 
beast had devoured him. So they cast him or lowered him 
down into one of those wells or pits that were dug for the 
storage of water (so necessary in that country of few rains), 
some of which at this season of the year would be dry. After 
putting him in the pit, they coolly sat down on the ground 
near by — possibly within sound of his sobs — to eat. I hardly 

53 



54 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

know anything more unfeeling than this; — to sit down to 
eat their ordinary meal, with the utmost indifference, almost 
within sight and sound of a young brother whom they were 
about to desert to die. 

The boy left to perish so inhumanly and by so awful a 
death is leaning against the side of the pit, a picture of de- 
spair. It is impossible for him to escape. The walls of the 
well are high and he has no means of reaching the top, and 
it is hardly likely that any one will ever hear his cries or 
pass that way and see him ; while above him are some of his 
brothers looking down into the pit as if in mockery. 

Look again ! There is a caravan of travellers. There are 
camels laden with merchandise on the way from the East to 
Egypt. There are merchants with costly spices, so much 
needed in Egypt for embalming bodies and for incense in 
worship. Then these brothers of Joseph think that it will 
be better to take him out of the pit and sell him to these 
travelling merchants. They are now talking about the price ; 
and they agree at last upon the small sum of twenty pieces 
of silver — equal to about ten dollars of our money — and the 
bargain is closed. They will keep the long and beautiful 
coat which Joseph's father had given him ; they will dip it 
in the blood of the kid which they killed for food ; and they 
will tell the father that they found the coat in some out-of- 
the-way place, and will lead the father to suppose that some 
evil beast has devoured Joseph. 

Look again ! It is the outside of a dwelling like a tent. 
An old man is sitting in the bright sunshine with a little boy 
at his side, and some women in the background. He is look- 
ing anxiously far off to see who is coming ; for his elder sons 



JOSEPH. 55 

have been longer away than usual with the flocks, and he had 
sent Joseph to look after them, and he too lingered ; he did 
not return, and the father became very anxious. Presently 
some men approach, and long before they reach him he 
sees that they are his elder sons ; but Joseph is not with them. 
They come slowly up to him, knowing full well that his first 
inquiry will be for Joseph, and they anticipate his question 
by saying, " This have we found : know now whether it be 
thy son's coat, or no." They do not say "our brother's 
coat," but " thy son's coat." Ah ! there is the coat, the long, 
beautiful coat, which in his fond love for his manly son, his 
favorite son, he had given to him ; but it is stained deeply 
with blood, the blood of his darling son — for he believes the 
sad story. The blow is very sudden ; he cannot bear it ; he 
throws up his hands, overwhelmed with horror, and abandons 
himself to his inconsolable grief. He tears his own clothes 
from off him, he puts sackcloth upon his loins ; and when his 
sons (how can they ?) and all his daughters rise up to com- 
fort him, he refuses to be comforted, saying, " I will go down 
into the grave unto my son mourning." 

Look again ! The Midianites, who had bought Joseph as a 
slave, have arrived in Egypt, and having no need for such a 
youth, they propose to sell him as a slave to an Egyptian. 
They had paid twenty pieces of silver for him ; what they 
ask for him we do not know They find a purchaser, 
however, in Potiphar, one of the king's officers. His new 
master is much pleased with his slave ; for the Lord is with 
Joseph, and this made him a prosperous man. His master 
soon finds that he has a treasure in his new slave, and he 
rewards his faithfulness with rapid promotion. He places 
him over all his other servants : he makes him overseer in his 



56 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

house, and over all that he has; and the Lord blesses the 
Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake, and the blessing of the 
Lord is upon all that he has in the house and in the field. 
So fully did he give up everything that he had into Joseph's 
hand that it is said he knew not what he had, save the bread 
that he ate. This high position in the family of one of the 
king's most favored servants brought with it some grave 
responsibilities, and exposed the young man to a frightful 
temptation. 

The next scene in the life of Joseph is one which I cannot 
describe. I can only say that there came a crisis, a turning- 
point in his life, when to hesitate would have been to yield, 
and to yield would have been the loss of all. His salvation 
was the belief in a present, an ever-present God. " His mas- 
ter's wife, too true to the type of old Egyptian womanhood 
as every ancient chronicle depicts it, first tempts him to sin, 
and then, infuriated at his holy resistance to her evil will, 
slakes her uttermost vengeance by a false accusation — not, as 
it seems, entirely believed nor wholly disbelieved — and by 
throwing the too-faithful slave into the dungeon where the 
king's prisoners were bound." But Joseph does not forget 
that he belongs to the great God, and he utters those words 
which will live as long as human language lives, and which 
have come to the help of many and many a poor tried and 
tempted one : " How then can I do this great wickedness, and 
sin against God ?" 

Look again ! It is a prison — a dreary, gloomy prison. 
The walls are cold, hard stone, bare, and broken by a chain 
hanging from a staple in the wall, to which the prisoners are 
bound. A jug for water and an earthen dish are all that we 
see. There are three men sitting close together and talking 



josEm. 57 

with each other. One of them is Joseph. He is respected 
and trusted by the keeper, and he is listening to his fellow 
prisoners, who are telling him of the very remarkable dreams 
they had last night. One prisoner has been the king's baker ; 
the other has been his butler or cup-bearer. For some reason 
they had displeased their master, and he had thrown them 
both into prison. They did not understand their dreams, but 
they thought they might have something to do with their 
deliverance from prison. God gave Joseph wisdom to inter- 
pret the dreams, and very soon they were fulfilled ; but the 
cup-bearer, who was restored to his office, and who promised 
to remember Joseph, forgot his promise, as many do forget 
promises they make (when in trouble) if only God will help 
them. So he forgot his promise, and Joseph languished in 
prison, it may be for long years. Do you suppose, in that 
long and cruel and most unjust imprisonment, he ever wished 
that he had yielded to that temptation and so sinned against 
God? I do not for a moment believe it. He who has 
strength to resist a temptation to do wrong never regrets it, 
unless he is given over to his own ways. 

Look again ! It is two years, and the butler has not 
remembered his promise to Joseph. Now Pharaoh the king 
has a dream. It is a very remarkable one, and there is no 
one who can interpret it. Then it occurs to the butler that 
there is one not far off who can explain dreams. He tells the 
king about the prisoner Joseph, still lying in the dungeoji. 
The king sends for him ; he comes, and interprets the king's 
dream. So impressed is Pharaoh with the reality of the 
warning in the dream that he adopts Joseph's advice ; and in 
order most effectually to carry it out, he raises Joseph to the 
highest place in all the land. He becomes Pharaoh's prime 



58 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

minister, and all Egypt is under his control. How wisely he 
administered public affairs I have not time now to tell you ; 
but his government was a complete success. What a change — 
from the gloomy dungeon to the place next to the throne ! 

Look again ! The scene changes. We are back again in 
Palestine. There is famine there. The family of Jacob feel 
it. The pastures are burnt up for want of rain. The flocks 
and herds are ready to perish, for there is little or no water 
to drink away from the great rivers. They have heard that 
there is corn in Egypt ; and so there is, thanks to the govern- 
ment of Joseph. The old man Jacob sends his ten sons — 
which are all except the youngest, Benjamin — down to Egypt 
to buy grain. There are the men, the donkeys, the camels, 
drawn up before the tent of the chief, who has given them 
money, and is now sending them away with his blessing, — 
for it is a long and perilous journey. The caravan sets out, 
and for many long and weary days they wind in and out the 
narrow paths and over the long sand-hills of the desert that 
lies between Egypt and Canaan. They reach the end of their 
journey ; they are brought before Joseph. They do not know 
him, but he knows them. He pretends to consider them as 
spies. They deny it, and to prove their innocence they tell 
him their history : that they are sons of an old man in Canaan 
who is suffering for food, and that there is one son left at 
home, and another who " is not." Joseph at length consents 
to let them have grain, but refuses to allow them to return 
unless they will bring their youngest brother to him ; and to 
insure this, he keeps one of the brothers, Simeon, as a host- 
age. Then they talk among themselves, not supposing he 
understands their language, and charge each other with the 
guilt of their conduct toward their brother Joseph at the 



JOSEPH. 59 

mouth of the pit. ... So they return with their sacks full 
of grain ; and when they open their sacks at home, behold, 
their money with which they had bought the grain is in 
the mouth of their sacks. This greatly troubles the old man 
their father, especially when he hears what the man the 
ruler of Egypt has said about his youngest son, Benjamin. 

After a time the grain is eaten, and they must have 
more. With the greatest reluctance the old man permits his 
youngest son to go with his brothers to Egypt. They stand 
again before the great ruler. Now his heart is stirred within 
him ; for there is his own brother (all the others are half- 
brothers), and he can hardly restrain his feelings. He treats 
them well, gives them a feast, and sends to his brother Ben- 
jamin's plate most abundant portions — five times as much 
as to the others. He gives them the grain they have come 
for ; and by a cunning device determines to have Benjamin 
brought back to him. He is brought back ; and his breth- 
ren, still believing the great ruler to be some stranger, come 
before him. Then ensues a most affecting scene. Judah, the 
oldest brother, makes their appeal for the deliverance of Ben- 
jamin ; and in an address which is unequalled for pathos he 
tells the story of the old man far away in Palestine, and the 
effect it will have upon him if his youngest son is not restored 
to him. This is too much for Joseph. He sends the Egyp- 
tians out of the room, and reveals himself to his brethren. 
He breaks out into uncontrollable weeping, so that the Egyp- 
tians and the house of Pharaoh hear him. 

The rest may be quickly and briefly told. Joseph sends 
for his old father, who can hardly believe the story. He 
presents him to Pharaoh, who receives him most graciously 
and sets apart some of the best of the land for his home. 

I know that this is the merest outline — only a glimpse — of 



60 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

the life of Joseph ; but perhaps it is enough to lead you to 
read for yourselves this most interesting story. 
What is the secret of Joseph's success ? 

1. He was pure. At that turning-point of his life when 
everything depended upon the act of one moment/ the thought 
of his duty to God kept him pure. How many young men 
and young women have fallen before such temptations and 
have been ruined ! It was not merely the memory of his long- 
lost mother, nor of his aged father, nor of his duty to himself 
and to his master who had trusted him so implicitly, that most 
impressed him, but, "How . . can I do this great wickedness, 
and sin against God?" No young man, no young girl, can hope 
to succeed who is not pure and who does not depend upon God. 

2. He was trustivorthy. In his father's tent, in his mas- 
ter's house, in the prison where he suffered though innocent, 
and in Pharaoh's government, he could be depended on always 
to do right. No one can hope to be successful unless he is 
trustworthy. 

3. He had a gentle, loving, tender heart He was a good 
son and a good brother. See how he loved his old father ! 
See how he wept on the neck of his young brother ! The 
long years of separation, the hard life of suffering he had 
led until his change came, the cares of a great government, 
had not weakened his love for his family. He freely for- 
gave and even excused his brethren for the great wrong they 
did him ; he provided for them handsomely ; he loved them 
as if they had always loved him. 

Now if boys and girls would be truly successful in life — I 
mean successful in the best sense; you well know what I 
mean — let me charge you to be pure, to be trustworthy, to be 
loving to all, especially to your father's family, and care for 
them as Joseph did for his. 



Thus thou wert known 

To faithful men of yore ; 
Thee Moses knew, when through the desert track 
He led the unstable, stiff-necked army back 

From Egypt's servile shore 
To their ancestral hills. — Blackie. 



From him we learn how to be patriots ; and how patriotism, like all 
other virtues, has its true root in piety. — Guthrie. 



For meekness and calmness of temper need not interfere with a man's 
courage or justice, or honest indignation against wrong, or power of help- 
ing his fellow men. Moses' meekness did not make him a coward or a 
sluggard, It helped him to do his work rightly instead of wrongly. — 
Kingsley. 



62 




The Statue of Moses. 



Page 63. 



CHAPTER V. 

MOSES. 

Next to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ there are three 
lives in the Holy Scriptures that stand out more prominently 
than any others. They are Moses, David and Paul. The 
biographies of these three persons, as given by themselves 
and others, are fuller in all important details than those of 
any other sacred characters. 

The history of the Bible is largely a history of individual 
lives ; and one of the best ways of studying the Bible, there- 
fore, is to take up these lives one by one and follow them out 
from the beginning to the end. 

It must be admitted that the materials for such a study of 
the life of Moses are not very abundant. He lived so far 
back in the history of the world that, although himself the 
first of historians, he has left few materials, except those 
belonging to the nation at large, for the compilation of his 
own biography. His life, indeed, was one of the grandest 
ever lived on the earth; u it was a power which produced 
the mightiest and most lasting results. Our life moves in 
the midst of those very truths which received their first 
currency and acknowledgment from Moses, and other minds 
like his ; we are sustained and protected by them, we live in 
the hourly enjoyment of their blessed fruits. But how few 
are able to appreciate the power which first and alone grasps 
such truths, and is then able also to connect them with the 
innermost life of the nation and thus permanently establish 
them in the world I n * 

* Ewald. 

63 



64 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

The life of Moses naturally divides itself into three por- 
tions of forty years each. The first period of forty years, 
from his birth, was spent in Egypt ; the second period in- 
cludes the time from his flight from Egypt to his return 
thither, embracing his shepherd life in Midian ; and the third 
and last period of forty years includes his leadership of the 
Hebrew nation from Egypt through the sea to Sinai, and 
thence through the wilderness to the borders of the land of 
Canaan. 

In a single chapter little more can be done than to name 
the principal incidents in the life of Moses, with a brief 
analysis of his character. These incidents are such as his 
birth and his rescue from the Nile ; his adoption and edu- 
cation by the Egyptian princess ; his escape into the land of 
Midian ; the incident at the well, where with true chivalry 
he protected the daughters of Jethro; his long residence 
there ; his marriage with Zipporah ; his shepherd life ; the 
burning bush ; his commission to return to Egypt and deliver 
his countrymen ; his modest declaration of unfitness for so 
great a work ; the signs God wrought and permitted him to 
work to prove his divine authority; his journey toward 
Egypt; the meeting with Aaron; the interview with the 
elders ; the demand upon Pharaoh and the refusal ; the 
plagues, one after the other, each one more terrible than that 
which preceded it ; the final reluctant consent of Pharaoh 
that the people might go; the institution of the passover; 
the death of the first-born ; the departure ; the pursuit of 
Pharaoh and his army ; the night passage of the sea ; the 
pillar of cloud and fire ; the morning song after the destruc- 
tion of Pharaoh's host ; the march into the wilderness ; the 
wells of Elim ; the bitter waters of Marah ; the murmuring 
for flesh, the quails sent; the encampment at Sinai; the 



MOSES. 65 

giving of the law; the burning mount; the golden calf; 
the setting up of the tabernacle; the establishment of the 
priesthood; the death of Nadab and Abihu; the march to 
Kadesh ; the spies or scouts, and the rebellion of Korah ; 
the death of Aaron ; the brazen serpent ; Balaam and Balak 
(the wicked prophet and the disappointed king) ; the encamp- 
ment on the other side of Jordan ; the vision of the land of 
promise which Moses saw but never entered; and his sin- 
gular death and burial. 

It is not an easy task to go back three thousand five 
hundred years and reproduce the scenes of that period, and 
describe characters and events which are found in only one 
history, and that history in a language which has no con- 
temporary literature to illustrate it ; but nevertheless it is an 
exceedingly interesting study, and if we are not able to attain 
results which are entirely satisfactory, we may at least from 
the sacred record itself, and from the explorations of modern 
travellers, find much that will help us in our appreciation 
of a life so grand and noble, and yet so humble and simple, 
as that of Moses. 

The Jewish people have been fond of preserving incidents 
of their history, early and late, in song. Sir Walter Scott 
in his famous historical romance of Ivanhoe has put one of 
these songs in the mouth of the heroine of that charming 
story, the Jewess Rebecca. So in the twelfth century of the 
Christian era, looking back over the whole history of her 
people, and expecting to die a terrible death on the morrow, 



she sang : 



When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 
Out from the land of bondage came, 

Her fathers' God before her moved, 
An awful guide, in smoke and flame. 



66 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

By day, along the astonished lands 

The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands 

Returned the fiery column's glow. 

There rose the choral hymn of praise, 

Aiid trump and timbrel answered keen, 
And Zion's daughters poured their lays, 

With priest's and warrior's voice between* 
l$o portents now our foes amaze, 

Forsaken Israel wanders lone ; 
Our fathers would not know thy ways, 

And thou hast left them to their own. 

But, present still, though now unseen, 

When brightly shines the prosperous day, 
Be thoughts of thee a cloudy screen 

To temper the deceitful ray. 
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path, 

In shade and storm, the frequent night, 
Be thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, 

A burning and a shining light. 

Our harps we left by Babel's streams, 

The tyrant's jest, tiie Gentile's scorn ; 
No censer round our altar beams, 

And mute are timbrel, trump and horn. 
But thou hast said, The blood of goat, 

The flesh of rams, I will not prize ; 
A contrite heart, an humble thought, 

Are mine accepted sacrifice. 

In the church of St. Peter in Vincoli, in the city of Rome, 
is Michael Angelo's famous statue of Moses. Its form is 
colossal ; the right hand resting on the two thin plates or 
tables of stone. The eye does not know where to rest in this 
masterpiece of sculpture. The figure is seated in the central 
niche in one of the transepts (in fact it is the glory of that 



MOSES. 67 

church), with long flowing beard descending to the waist, 
with bowed head and deep-sunk eyes which almost blaze, as 
it were, w T ith the light of the burning bush, with a majesty 
of anger which makes one tremble, as of a passionate being 
full of fire. "All that is positive and all that is negative in 
him is equally dreadful. If he were to rise up, it seems as 
if he would shout forth laws which no human intellect could 
fathom. His voice, like that of the gods of Homer, would 
thunder forth in tones too awful for the ear of man to sup- 
port. There is something almost infinite in this statue of 
Moses. There is no softness or meekness in the sculptor's 
conception. He sees in Moses only the great Lawgiver. 
The great muscular development which has been so criticised 
is that of mind, not animal. His countenance is not softened 
by the twilight of sadness w T hich is stealing from his forehead 
over his eyes. It is the same deep sadness which clouded 
the countenance of Angelo himself. But here it is less 
touching than terrible. The 'Greeks could not have endured 
a glance from such a Moses, and the artist would certainly 
have been blamed because he had thrown no softening touch 
over his gigantic picture. That which we have is the type 
of a terrible and unapproachable sublimity." 

There is a tradition of Angelo that when he had finished 
the statue, he was himself so amazed with the life-like ap- 
pearance of the figure that he raised his hammer and struck 
the marble on the knee and said, " Speak;" and thus the 
cracked seam in the stone is accounted for. 

In considering in mere outline the character of Moses, let 
me say : 

1. As a man he was very meek. When the people, hemmed 
in by the mountains and the sea and with the host of the 
Egyptians in their rear, reproached Moses as being the cause 



68 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

of their misery, he did not turn on them in righteous indig- 
nation, as he might have done, and as most men would have 
done, but he simply bade them stand still and watch the 
doings of Providence, stand still and see the salvation of 
God. 

When, on account of his marriage with an Egyptian 
woman, whether Jethro's daughter or some other we know 
not, Miriam and Aaron, his own sister and brother, conspired 
against him and spoke against him, vilifying and defaming 
him and bringing him into contempt among the people, a sin 
so flagrant as to call down God's displeasure in the leprosy 
which fell upon Miriam, Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, 
" Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee." There was no re- 
sentment here. He forgot himself and the cruel wrong they 
had done him, and interceded for Miriam's recovery. He 
had not only not accused her to God, but he was the first to 
move to reverse the judgment. One of the passages, the 
third verse of the twelfth chapter of Numbers, written in 
later years and interpolated here, says, " Now the man Moses 
was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face 
of the earth." 

2. He was modest This is one of the characteristics of 
true greatness. A man may be very good, his heart may 
overflow with love to his fellow men ; but if he is fond of 
prominence and notoriety, seeking high places and rejoicing 
in public attention, you do not ordinarily think of such a 
man as great. Some of us can recall the names of persons 
who were foremost among the active and energetic in public 
matters and zealous in religious things, yet whose almost only 
fault is that they were not modest. If there is a public meet- 
ing called, such men are always at the front. If a speech is 
to be made, they are always ready to make it. If they meet 



MOSES. 69 

you in a railway car or in any public place, they talk in loud 
tones of the most sacred subjects; they offend the public 
taste and provoke criticism of no friendly nature. 

You cannot think of Moses in such a light. When God 
met him in Horeb and spoke from the burning bush, reveal- 
ing his commission, calling him to return to Egypt and go 
among his brethren, and then before Pharaoh, and declare 
that he must let the people go, we might have supposed that 
the mountain shepherd and herdsman, tired of his monot- 
onous life, a life so tame in contrast with his life in Egypt, 
conscious too of his fitness for a higher sphere, — we might 
have supposed he would leap at the prospect of deliverance 
from his dull life among the flocks, and joyfully undertake 
the new mission. But, with that modesty which was so 
characteristic of him, and which is so rare among men in our 
times, he said, " Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh ?" 
And even after a conversation or dialogue, one of the most 
remarkable on record, in which God with argument upon 
argument and miracle upon miracle shows him that it is his 
duty to go, he replies in that declaration, which under all the 
circumstances is without a parallel, " O my Lord, I am not 
eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto 
thy servant; but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue." 

What man in our day Can be found who w r ould decline 
such an honor from such a source ? 

3. Moses was affectionate. He loved his father-in-law. 
When, after a long separation, Moses at the head of the chil- 
dren of Israel, whom he had led out of Egypt, comes into 
the region of Horeb, Jethro, taking Zipporah, Moses' wife, 
and his two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, goes out into the 
encampment in the wilderness to meet Moses. And then 
occurred what may be seen now in the same desert when 



70 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

friends meet after long separation. " Moses . . . did obei- 
sance" to his father-in-law, " and kissed him ; and they asked 
each other of their welfare ; and they came into the tent." 

He loved his brother Aaron ; he never strove with him. 
Once he remonstrated with him in the matter of the golden 
calf, but his feeling was chiefly for the people on account of 
their great sin, and for God who had so soon been insulted 
and forgotten. 

He loved his sister Miriam. In the dim records that have 
come down to us there is little said of the incidents of do- 
mestic life, but we cannot doubt that Moses cherished a true 
love for the sister who watched the little basket in the Nile, 
in which his fond mother had placed him. 

4. He was patient No man ever had more to provoke 
impatience. No man was more misunderstood and more 
misrepresented than Moses. The people put the worst con- 
struction upon all his acts. Grovelling and selfish them- 
selves, they measured him by their own standard and could 
not conceive of higher, purer motives than such as actuated 
themselves. But he bore with all their reproaches and never 
returned evil for evil. 

5. Moses was self-sacrificing. When he came down from 
the mount where the law was delivered and found the people 
led away, unrestrained by Aaron, into the idolatry of the 
calf, he witnessed the first day the destruction, by the com- 
mand of the Lord, of three thousand men. On the morrow, 
after he had charged the people with their great sin, he pro- 
posed to go up to the Lord and make an atonement for them, 
or intercede for them, as I suppose the word means, so that 
the judgment might be averted. And he said, "Oh, this 
people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of 
gold ; yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — ;" and then, 



MOSES. 71 

as if afraid to finish the sentence, he adds, " and if not, blot 
me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." 
As much as to say, " If I cannot prevent their destruction, 
let me not see it." But 

6. Moses was quick-tempered. His anger grew hot when 
he saw the worship of the golden calf. And when the people 
strove at Meribah (hence called the waters of strife), he 
rashly, harshly said in language which could not be justified, 
manifesting a spirit from the consequences of which he never 
recovered, a Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water 
out of this rock ?" " In this incident occurs the expression 
of distrust on the part of Aaron as well as of Moses. It is 
but a single blot in the career of the prophet, and it is but 
slightly touched by the sacred narrative." * 

Xow all the qualities which I have mentioned he could 
possess, in some degree at least, without being a religious 
man. They are mental and moral characteristics, but not 
necessarily religious. The last one mentioned, "quick tem- 
per," is an infirmity; but the others, meekness, modesty, 
aifectionateness, patience, self-sacrifice, are virtues which all 
should cultivate. 

7. As a religious man, Moses had such traits as these. He 
was humble. When God revealed himself at the burning bush, 
Moses hid his face in his mantle, for he was afraid to look 
upon God. Not merely from terror of the wonderful bright- 
ness did he do this ; but he had just been told to take off his 
shoes from his feet, for he stood on holy ground. And in 
deep humility he wrapped his face in his loose outer garment, 
and bowed his head in the presence of the infinite God. And 
then when God told him what he must say to Pharaoh, and 
to his own people whom he was to redeem, Moses replied, 

* Dean Stanley. 



72 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSOXS. 

"But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto 
my voice : for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared 
unto thee." 

Moses was prayerful. This is so apparent in his whole 
history that one need not be at pains to furnish the proof. 
He lived in communion with God. He carried his troubles, 
his cares, to him who loveth and careth for all his children. 
When overwhelmed with the hardness of heart of the people, 
and their unwillingness to obey the commands of God, he 
would look toward the cloud, the symbol of divine presence, 
and fall on his face in prayer. So familiar was he with God 
that it was said, over and over again, that God talked with 
Moses; talked with him as a man talks with his friend, 
mouth to mouth. 

Moses was full of faith. The author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews assures us of this in the wonderful eleventh chapter 
of that epistle, from the 23d to the 29th verse. 

Moses was anxious for the glory of God. This is shown in 
his conduct when the Israelites complained on the return of 
the spies. When the ten spies or scouts returned with the 
unfavorable report of the land, its walled cities and its 
gigantic inhabitants, and the people broke out into those 
passionate exclamations, " Would God that we had died in 
the land of Egypt ! or would God we had died in this 
wilderness !" and God said, " I will smite them with the 
pestilence, and disinherit them," Moses said, "Then the 
Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people 
in thy might from among them ;) and they will tell it to the 
inhabitants of this land : for they have heard that thou Lord 
art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face, 
and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest 
before them, by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar 



MOSES. 73 

of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as 
one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee 
will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring 
this people into the land which he sware unto them, there- 
fore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I 
beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according 
as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and 
of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by 
no means clearing the guilty. . . . Pardon, I beseech thee, 
the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy 
mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt 
even until now." It was not so much the wretched condition 
of the people that distressed him, overwhelming as that was, 
as that the glory of God should be tarnished by an apparent 
failure to complete the good work God had begun, because 
he was not able to do it. 

Moses was submissive. This is shown in the fact, so sad 
and so touching, that when God, for his great sin, had for- 
bidden him from going over with the people into Canaan, he 
did not repine nor rebel, though he desired very much to go. 
It was a hard trial. But it w r as the will of God, and that 
was enough for him. He bowed his own will, the highest 
of all religious tests, — he bowed his own will to that of God, 
and was content only to see the land, but not to go over to it. 

These traits that I have now mentioned — humility, prayer- 
fulness, faith, anxiety for the glory of God, submission to 
the will of God — are all characteristics of the religious man, 
and were possessed by Moses in an eminent degree. They 
are never found, they cannot exist, in the heart of one who is 
not religious. 

8. But Moses was not only a man, and a religious man ; 
he was a governor. As such he was true to his religious 



74 o;ld stories with new lessons. 

duties. He never failed to ask counsel of God. He had 
no congress or parliament or legislature to appeal to. His 
seventy elders were a kind of senate, but their combined 
wisdom was not greater than his trained mind. The theory 
of the Jewish state was that God was King ; Moses was his 
representative in the state, and Aaron his priest. They 
needed nothing more in the way of government for church 
or state, and not until after the conquest of Canaan and their 
settlement in tribes in that land did it occur to them that 
any change in the government was desirable. Moses leaned 
upon God. He sought counsel of him. 

9. He was also calm and courageous. There were times 
when he was sorely tried. When he stood on the shore of 
the Red Sea, with the cries of the timid, disappointed people 
whom he had led out from bondage filling his ears, he said, 
in all the assurance of conscious victory, " Fear ye not, stand 
still, and see the salvation of the Lord. . . . The Egyptians 
whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more 
for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold 
your peace." 

10. That he was unambitious appears when he says with 
reference to his going from Horeb to Egypt to lead the 
people out, " O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand 
of him whom thou wilt send": that is, send by anybody 
rather than by me. When God threatened to destroy all 
the people and raise up from Moses a great nation, Moses, 
forgetting himself entirely, thought only of the character of 
God and the effect which such a destruction of his people 
would have on the surrounding nations. What other man 
that ever lived would have met, as he did, such a proposition 
from such a source ? 

11. As a governor and a civil ruler, he was true to his 



MOSES. 75 

religious duties and his loyalty to God ; calm and courageous, 
and what is more strange, he was not ambitious. 

12. If we look at Moses as a general, a military man, we 
shall find that he was skillful in conducting open battles. 
We read in the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, before the 
people reached Horeb, how they encountered the great tribe 
of Amalek, ruled by a chief under the title of king ; a wide- 
spreading clan, like the feebler Bedouins of our day, extend- 
ing their excursions far into Palestine. This fierce- tribe 
occupied the whole upper part of the peninsula, and were 
naturally the first to encounter and contend the entrance to 
the new people.* 

Moses goes not into the battle personally, but he chooses as 
his lieutenant Joshua ; gives him the plan of* battle ; commits 
the issues to the youthful warrior, and then retires to com- 
mune with God. It was a hard-fought battle ; won not by 
prowess only, but by the strong hand of God in answer to 
prayer. 

13. He was skillful also in besieging towns. When, 
further on in the history, he was commanded by the Lord to 
avenge the children of Israel on the Midianites (Num. 31), 
he spoiled all their property, took their cattle, their flocks 
and their goods, and burnt all their cities. Sharp retribution 
was this, but it was carrying out the legitimate purpose of 
war, which is to subdue or destroy the enemy. And in this 
Moses was eminently successful. 

Moses was skillful in the choice of officers. Not only was 
this shown in the selection of Joshua, who led the people out 
to the first battle and the first victory — the man who was full 
of the spirit of wisdom, on whom Moses had laid his hands, 
and in whose charge he left the people when he laid down 

• Dean Stanley, History Jewish Church. 



76 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

his life — but in Caleb also, the companion of Joshua in 
reconnoitering the land, and who united with him in the 
favorable or minority report. These had another and a 
better spirit than that of the ten cowardly spies or scouts 
whose report filled the people with terror. The choice of 
Caleb and Joshua showed Moses to be a rare judge of char- 
acter, and of the fitness of certain men for certain positions. 
14. Moses was not only in the highest sense a man, a 
religious man, a governor and a general ; he was also a judge, 
and as such — 

a. He was strictly just and impartial. In the earliest days 
of his leadership, before the people had yet reached the 
mount from which the law was delivered, Moses was the 
only judge. There were no written laws ; the people brought 
their disputes before him, and without colleagues or assistants 
he heard all the cases. This was in addition to the other 
most arduous and overwhelming duties. These hearings 
consumed the whole clay. Among so numerous a people 
there was necessarily a vast number of disputes and com- 
plaints. Moses' father-in-law looked on with surprise and 
remonstrated: "What is this thing that thou doest to the 
people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people 
stand by thee from morning unto even ? . . . Thou wilt 
surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with 
thee." And Moses said, " Because the people come unto me 
to inquire of God : when they have a matter, they come unto 
me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make 
them know the statutes of God, and his laws." 

Oh, if all the judges in our day were as conscientious and 
impartial, Justice would not be so often compelled to hang 
her head in shame ! 

b. As a judge he was incorruptible, and when in compliance 



MOSES. 77 

with the advice of his father-in-law he chose men out of the 
various tribes to assist him in his judicial duties — men to 
whom the numberless petty cases could be confided, while the 
more weighty matters he reserved for his own judgment — he 
chose for his assistants able men such as feared God, men of 
truth and hating covetousness. 

15. Moses w r as not only a religious man, a governor, a 
general, a judge; he was also a poet. And as such he was 
the first of any note. 

He lived in the sixteenth century before Christ, while 
Homer, the Greek poet, lived in the ninth or tenth century 
before Christ. Here is a space of from six to seven hundred 
years between the times w^hen these two men lived. Now 
if you wish to know how wide a gap this is, go back six 
hundred years in our own English literature and see whom 
you find in the world of letters in our own language. None ; 
there was no literature. The first English poet of any note, 
Chaucer, died in 1381 ; and Sir John Mandeville, who has 
been called the first English prose writer, died nearly five 
hundred years ago. 

The poetry which Moses wrote was real poetry. Look at 
that magnificent song which they sang the morning after the 
night passage of the sea and the overthrow of Pharaoh's 
host. Look at the thirty-second and thirty-third chapters 
of Deuteronomy, w T here, in a song which in some respects is 
inimitable for the beauty of its figures and for its fine poetic 
taste, he rehearses the dealings of God with his people in 
their wanderings, and then blesses the people, tribe by tribe, 
in the spirit of inspired and true prophecy. 

No production of a heathen or a Christian pen can compete 
in the higher aims of poetical excellence with this compo- 
sition of the Hebrew lawgiver ; and the only wonder is how 



78 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

so many who are constantly reading it fail to discover those 
beauties which absorb the mind of the reader who has the 
taste to discriminate and the heart to feel. 

In what an elevated frame of mind must the illustrious 
lawgiver have been when he composed this ode ! Aged as 
he was and near to his dissolution, his mind was as fresh and 
vigorous as ever. And deep must have been the impression 
made upon the people's minds when they saw his venerable 
form, never more venerable than now, and heard the won- 
drous strains which fell from his inspired lips. Open the 
chapter and look at these glowing and impressive words. I 
will quote but one or two verses as specimens. 

For the Lord's portion is his people ; 
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 
He found him in a desert land, 
And in the waste howling wilderness : 

He led him about, 

He instructed him, 
He kept him as the apple of his eye. 
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
Fluttereth over her young, 
Spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
Beareth them on her wings : 
So the Lord alone did lead him ; 
And there was no strange god with him. 

" How beautiful is this imagery, and how striking to a 
people who must have observed the care of the eagle for her 
young ! It presents also a lively picture of God's dealings 
with his people; for, to induce them to leave Egypt, he had 
6 stirred up their nest/ and rendered that land, in which they 
would otherwise have settled down, a land of suffering and 
trial, so at length they were glad to leave it, even with the 
prospect of a journey through the wilderness. But I have 



MOSES. 79 

not time to dwell, and must therefore leave you to read this 
incomparable ode, reminding you that it is to a great extent 
applicable to the Christian Israel, and is calculated to en- 
courage, to comfort, and to warn the church of God in every 
age and in every place." * 

Look, too, at the ninetieth Psalm. It has been called the 
funeral hymn of the world. It is associated with the saddest 
moments in our lives — the death and burial of our friends. 
I know that the authorship of this Psalm has been questioned, 
and there are those who feel quite certain that it belongs to a 
later period than that of Moses; but until stronger arguments 
are brought to sustain this view than have yet been presented, 
very many readers will adhere to the old view, that it was 
written by Moses after the doom of the forty-years wanderings 
was pronounced on the people. As a composition it is full 
of beauty; its figures are natural and appropriate, its lan- 
guage even in our translation tender, plaintive, and yet grand 
and majestic. 

16. As a historian Moses was the oldest, for he was the 
author of the Pentateuch, the first five books in the Bible. 
The oldest Greek historians of whom we have any knowledge, 
Herodotus, the " father of history," Thucydides and Xeno- 
phon, lived one thousand years or more after Moses. 

He was very simple in style. See the first chapter of Gen- 
esis, which is a model of brevity and perspicuity, and is 
remarkable for the absence from it of all adornment. Wit- 
ness also the twenty-second chapter of Genesis, containing 
the account of Abraham's journey to Moriah to offer Isaac in 
sacrifice; a narrative of most extraordinary simplicity and 
beauty. 

He was eloquent, as shown in the forty-fourth chapter of 

* Thornly Smith. 



80 OLD STOKIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Genesis, where Judah's speech to Joseph is recited, and in the 
forty-ninth chapter of Genesis, containing Jacob's dying 
charge to his sons; and truthful, for he never exagger- 
ates, but writes his history in the most direct and explicit 
terms. 

17. As a teacher, " Moses was learned in all the wisdom 
of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds " 
(so the martyr Stephen said). Earnest, practical, explicit, 
faithful, thorough ; for he says in the thirtieth chapter of 
Deuteronomy, " See, I have set before thee this day life and 
good, and death and evil. ... I call heaven and earth to 
record this day against you, that I have set before you life 
and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that 
both thou and thy seed may live." 

18. As a prophet, Moses was counted the greatest. In 
Deut. 34 : 10 it is said, after his death, " And there arose 
not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the 
Lord knew face to face." And Moses, in repeating the law 
to Israel, said, " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a 
Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto 
me ; unto him shall ye hearken." And our Lord said 
(John 5), " There is one that accuseth you, even Moses in 
whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
believed me : for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his 
writings, how shall ye believe my words?" He was also 
abundant in predictions, and unfailingly accurate. 

But the time came for Moses to die. Until very recently 
it has seemed impossible to identify the mountain on the top 
of which Moses was called to lay down his life ; but within 
a few years an English clergyman, Canon Tristram of Dur- 
ham, has, he thinks, quite certainly ascertained the very 
mountain peak which in the thirty-fourth chapter of Deuter- 



MOSES. 81 

onomy is called Nebo. It is one of the peaks in that range 
of the mountains of Moab over against Jericho, and in the 
plains at the foot of which the camp of Israel lay. 

The view from that mountain height is in some respects 
unparalleled ; for all the objects of the vision are enriched 
by sacred associations. 

Mr. Tristram was anxious to verify, exactly the view which 
the gaze of Moses took in from that mountain top, and he 
made three visits there for the purpose. But on each occasion 
there w^as a haze from the heat which dimmed the distant 
features and outlines, producing a sort of mirage which ren- 
dered it difficult clearly to trace distant objects. Still he had 
a clear distant view of western Palestine and the whole 
Judsean range from Hebron to Galilee. He could see the 
west side of the Dead Sea, and Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Miz- 
peh. Even Ebal and Gerizim were very easily made out, 
and the opening of the vale of Shechem. Carmel could be 
recognized, but he could barely make out the Mediterranean 
Sea ; and though it is certainly possible that it might be seen 
from that elevation, he was not sure that he could see more 
than the haze over the plain of Esdraelon. Mount Hermon 
certainly could be seen in a clear atmosphere over the Jordan 
valley. He thought he saw the wady up the course of which 
was the natural ascent to Nebo, and by which Moses, as he 
thinks, doubtless ascended with Joshua to the crest of the 
range. He thought he could trace the line of the path the 
whole way up. 

" And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the 
mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against 
Jericho. ... So Moses the servant of the Lord died there 
in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. 
And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over 
6 



82 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre 
unto this day" (Beut. 34 : 1, 5, 6). 

The well-known lines of Mrs. Alexander, the wife of the 
Bishop of Derry, may properly close this fragmentary sketch : 

By Nebo's lonely mountain, 

On this side Jordan's wave, 
In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave ; 
And no man knows that sepulchre, 

And no man saw it e'er ; 
For the angels of God upturned the sod, 

And laid the dead man there. 

That was the grandest funeral 

That ever passed on earth; 
But no man heard the trampling, 

Or saw the train go forth. 
Noiselessly as the daylight 

Comes back when night is done, 
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek 

Grows into the great sun — 

Noiselessly as the spring-time 

Her crown of verdure weaves, 
And all the trees on all the hills 

Open their thousand leaves, — 
So, without sound of music, 

Or voice of them that wept, 
Silently doAvn from the mountain's crown 

The great procession swept. 

Perchance the bald old eagle, 

On gray Beth-peor's height, 
Out of his lonely eyrie 

Looked on the wondrous sight; 
Perchance the lion stalking 

Still shuns that hallowed spot : 
For beast and bird have seen and heard 

That which man knoweth not. 



MOSES. 83 

But when the warrior dieth, 

His comrades in the war, 
With arms reversed, and muffled drum, 

Follow his funeral car. 
They show the banners taken, 

They tell his battles won, 
And after him lead his masterless steed, 

While peals the minute-gun. 

Amid the noblest of the land 

Men lay the sage to rest, 
And give the bard an honored place, 

With costly marble drest, 
In the great minster transept, 

Where lights like glories fall, 
And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings 

Along the emblazoned wall. 

This was the bravest warrior 

That ever buckled sword ; 
This, the most gifted poet 

That ever breathed a word ; 
And never earth's philosopher 

Traced with his golden pen, 
On the deathless page, truths half so sage 

As he wrote down for men. 

And had he not high honor? 

The hillside for his pall, 
To lie in state while angels wait, 

With stars for tapers tall, 
And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes 

Over his bier to wave, 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, 

To lay him in the grave : 

In that strange grave without a name, 

Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again — O wondrous thought ! — 

Before the judgment-day, 



84 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



And stand, with glory wrapped around, 

On the hills he never trod, 
And speak of the strife that won our life 

With the incarnate Son of Grod. 

O lonely tomb in Moab's land ! 

O dark Beth-peor's hill ! 
Speak to these curious hearts of ours, 

And teach them to be still. 
God hath his mysteries of grace, 

Ways that we cannot tell ; 
And hides them deep, like the secret sleep 

Of him he loved so well. 




Mount Sinai. 



When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to thee. — Faber. 



Sweet Buth among the meadows ! 
Stay awhile, true heart, and teach us, 

Pausing in thy matron beauty, 
Care of elders, love of kindred, 

All unselfish thought and duty. 
Linger, Boaz, noble-minded ! 

Teach us, haughty and unsparing, 
Tender care for lowlier station, 

Kindly speech and courteous bearing. 



And if thy gentle eyes 
Gleam tremulous through tears, 'tis not to rue 
Those words, immortal in their deep love's tone, 
" Thy people and thy God shall be mine own." — Hemasts. 



86 



CHAPTER VI. 

RUTH. 

On the brow of a hill overlooking a broad valley with a 
river winding through it, is a group of four persons. They 
are all dressed in the costume of that country and of that 
time. One is a man no longer .young, with a shepherd's 
staff in his hand and his loose flowing garments gathered up 
as if for a journey. By his side is his wife, with a jar in her 
left hand, just ready also to start. There are two lads hardly 
beyond boyhood, one of whom has a heavy bundle on his 
left shoulder, supported by his arm, with the hand resting 
on his side ; while the other lad is partly leading and partly 
driving a donkey heavily laden. A she-goat, meekly fol- 
lowing, as a domestic animal, completes the group. 

The man and the woman and the two lads are all looking 
eastward over the broad valley and the winding river, to the 
mountains beyond. They are all barefooted, and are just 
starting down the hill on their slow and painful journey. 

Ten years have passed. Look again. There is another 
group. The chief figure is a woman with a sad countenance, 
tall and dignified, yet pale from suffering and bereavement. 
With her are two young women, hardly more than girls ; 
one of whom is leaning on the bosom of the elder woman, 
her hands resting upon her shoulders. The other has turned 
away and covered her face with her left hand to hide her 
tears, while her right hand is held in the left hand of the 
elderly woman. They are all widows, three childless widows. 
The ever-present, ever-faithful donkey, with his burden, is 
waiting patiently by. They are all standing on the side of a 

87 



88 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

mountain, looking westward over the same broad valley and 
its winding river. 

One of these young girls clings to the old mother as if 
nothing but death could part them. The other, not lacking 
in love, but perhaps in courage, is tearing herself away to 
return to her home. When she is gone the other two gather 
up their robes and start down the hill on foot. 

Again we see the two women, with their donkey, having 
crossed the wide valley a#d the river, and found their way 
up the rocky road and into the narrow street of an old city. 
They are poorly clad, tired and dusty from their long journey 
on foot. Their appearance in the little town attracts much 
attention, as such a group would in any country town ; and 
the gossips began to ask, "Who is this?" Presently one 
says, " Is this Naomi ?" And the old woman answers, 
"Call me not Naomi" (that is, pleasant, sweet), "call me 
Mara" (that is, bitter): "for the Almighty hath dealt very 
bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath 
brought me home again empty : why then call ye me Naomi, 
seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty 
hath afflicted me ?" 

Look again ! There is the edge of a barley-field. A 
young woman has been gleaning the stalks of barley as they 
were dropped or left by the reapers and the binders. She 
has gathered quite a sheaf, and as she is tying the stalks in a 
bundle, the master steps up to the overseer and asks, " Whose 
damsel is this ?" At this the poor girl falls down before the 
great man and raises her right hand in supplication, as if she 
would say, Do not send me away. I am poor ; my mother 
is poor ; I have come to the harvest-field hoping to gather a 
little grain. 

The overseer answers his master's question by saying, 



RUTH. 89 

" It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out 
of the country of Moab." Then the master, who seems to 
have heard the sad story before, touched by the fortorn con- 
dition of the poor girl, gives her full permission to glean in his 
field; and not only charges his young men not to be rude to 
her, but tells the reapers to let some handfuls drop on purpose, 
so that the young woman may not go home empty-handed. 

Another scene. We look upon a rich pastoral scene, for 
the fields around are waving with yellow grain or are covered 
with rich shocks of barley. It is noon. The bright sun, 
undimmed with clouds, is bathing all the fields with floods 
of light. The reapers are gathered in a circle, taking their 
midday meal of parched barley and sour wine mixed with 
water ; a very poor dinner, we should say, for harvesters. 
The master, in his turban and long beard and flowing robes, 
comes up to the group of harvest-w r orkers leading by the 
hand this young girl, this stranger. He seems to say, 
Friends, here is a girl from the land of Moab. Though so 
young, she is a widow. She has followed her mother-in-law 
Naomi, whom some of you remember, from the land of Moab, 
where the poor woman and her husband and her two sons 
went ten years ago, and where all but Naomi died. She is 
very poor. She has come out to our harvest-fields to get a 
little grain for food. Be kind to her. Do not distress her. 

And then, as Ruth sits among the reapers, the master (Boaz) 
himself helps her to the roasted ears of barley, until the 
meal is finished and they return to their work. 

At the end of the day's work, when Ruth goes home tired 
but with her shawl full of grain, the heart of Naomi is 
filled with joy, not only at the food she has brought to the 
poor family, but that her daughter should have gone into the 
field of Boaz, who is a kinsman of Naomi. 



90 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Again we look, and see the gateway of the little city, where 
groups of men are gathered discussing topics of common 
interest, or transacting business, or settling differences or 
disputes. The master is among them. But he is there for 
no ordinary business. As he sits there waiting apparently 
for some one whom he is expecting, a man comes up as if 
going out at the gate, leading a donkey. Boaz calls out to 
him by name, to come and sit clown ; the man obeys. He is 
kinsman to Ruth's husband, and according to the custom of 
that country and that time, he has the first right to ask the 
hand of Ruth in marriage. Boaz gathers ten men as wit- 
nesses, and asks this man if he intends to marry the young 
Moabitish woman. The man replies that he does not ; and 
then Boaz declares in the presence of these witnesses that he 
will marry Ruth, and seals this declaration by the strange 
symbol of plucking off his shoe and giving it to the other 
man. Strange wedding, you will say ; but a happy one, for 
the love they bore each other was founded on mutual respect. 

Once more, we behold another group. An old woman, a 
young mother and a little babe. Naomi is living her youth 
over again as she looks on the child lying on her lap : the 
child of Ruth, her dear daughter-in-law, and Boaz. She is 
thinking of the days long ago when her own boys lay on her 
lap, and she looked down into their sweet and innocent faces. 

Where are those boys now ? Alas ! they lie in their tombs 
in the country beyond the valley and the river, beyond the blue 
mountains, in the land of Moab. They died, both of them, 
while they were young. The mother's heart was torn with 
anguish as she followed them, one after the other, to the grave. 
No wonder she had felt as if even her name should be changed 
— as if she should no longer be called Naomi, but Mara — for 
it seemed to her the Lord had dealt very bitterly with her. 



RUTH. 91 

But Rutli is" in that group ; and, leaning her elbow on 
Naomi's knee, and her chin upon her hand, she is looking 
into the face of her child, her own son, her little boy. What 
feelings thrill her ! She is no longer the young, desolate 
widow. She is no longer the foot-sore wanderer, turning 
her back upon her native land and the grave of her husband, 
and looking toward the land of the stranger. She is no 
longer the poor girl, picking up the barley stalks that fall 
from the hands of the reapers and beating out the grain, and 
taking it home in the evening to her mother. All that is 
past. Now she is the happy wife of the good Boaz, and 
this little boy into whose sweet face she is looking as only a 
mother can look, this boy is her own son. 

Proud and happy mother ! Ah, if you only knew what 
we know — that years after this, and in this same city of 
Bethlehem, and descended from this very child, this little 
boy, another boy should be born, whom choirs of angels 
should welcome — if you knew this, your rapturous gaze 
would grow almost into divine worship ! 

This is a story — one of the most beautiful in the Bible or 
anywhere else. It is a love story. It is a story of poverty, 
of emigration, of marriage and death, of widowhood and 
desolation, and afterwards of virtuous marriage and happi- 
ness. A family becomes extinct ; a new family is founded. 

Let me tell the story over again, very briefly. 

The family of Elimelech, sorely pressed by famine in their 
native country, even in Bethlehem, which means " the House 
of Bread," determine to go to a foreign land in search of 
better fortune. The father and mother and two lads, with 
all their household goods on the donkey or in their hands, 
set out from their old home, the home of their forefathers for 
many generations, across the Jordan valley and through one 



92 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

of the passes of the mountains of Moab, and find a refuge in 
the country beyond. There the two lads, when grown to be 
men, marry young girls of that strange people among whom 
they have gone to dwell. Some time after this Elimelech 
dies. The strong man is called away, the widow is left 
desolate and a stranger. Then, one after the other, her sons 
also are called away by death, and the widow's cup of sorrow 
is full to overflowing. In her bereavement and utter deso- 
lation her thoughts go back to the home of her childhood. 
She has some friends there ; some of her kindred will re- 
member her. She determines to return. She sets out. 
There is nothing to take with her, she is empty-handed ; a 
little donkey can take her and all she has on its back. But 
her two daughters-in-law, poor young things, are not willing 
to let her go alone ; they set out with her. Naomi remon- 
strates. Why should they go? They have no friends in 
the land of Judah. Nobody there will welcome them. But 
they go on with her. At length they come to the mountain 
pass that overlooks the valley, where the rocks throw up 
their huge forms as if the great stone ridge had been parted 
to make a pathway ; and there the desolate widow pauses to 
dissuade her companions from following her further. One 
of them throws herself upon the old mother's breast, clinging 
with fond tenderness to her, saying, in those most pathetic 
words which have come down to us in our own beautiful 
English, " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from 
following after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God my God : where thou diest, will I die, 
and there will I be buried : the Lord do so to me, and more 
also, if aught but death part thee and me." 
And we sing in our plaintive hymn — 



RUTH. 93 

People of the living God, 

I have sought the world around, 
Paths of sin and sorrow trod, 

Peace and comfort nowhere found ; 
Now to you my spirit turns, 

Turns a fugitive unblest : 
Brethren, where your altar burns, 

Oh, receive me into rest. 

The other, whom we need not charge with want of affec- 
tion — who may have had friends in the land of Moab whom 
she could not leave, or who may have been unwilling to 
burden the aged mother with two dependent daughters-in- 
law, or w r ho may have lacked courage to face the fatigues 
and exposure of a journey on foot to a land of strangers and 
of a strange religion — the other, Orpah, kisses her mother- 
in-law and turns back to her own people. 

The journey of Naomi and Ruth is not very long ; they 
return to Bethlehem ; their arrival makes a great stir ; 
Naomi and her husband must have been people of some 
importance ; they find shelter, but still in extreme pov- 
erty. Ruth goes out to the harvest-field, and led by the 
good hand of the Almighty God whom she has chosen 
rather than the gods of her own people, she goes to the field 
of Boaz the rich farmer, where her modest, virtuous deport- 
ment attracts the attention of the master, in whom at last she 
finds a loving, faithful husband. 

Among the many lessons that may be drawn from this 
simple and beautiful story, I mention but two. 

1. The turning-points in life. — It has happened to many 
people besides poor Orpah, that there are times when the 
whole aim and purpose of life is determined by a single act. 
Some question of duty or interest is presented ; a choice must 
be made; and on the wisdom or folly of that choice the 



94 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

whole life for this world and the next may turn. It was so 
in the case of Orpah. The question for her was, whether 
she should go on with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law 
to Bethlehem, in the land of Israel, where she might be led 
to give up her native religion and worship the God of the 
Hebrews, or whether she should go back again to her idol- 
atry. You know what she chose. We never hear of Orpah 
again; her name drops out of history; we know nothing 
whatever about her. She is gone. It was a turning-point 
in her life, and she turned the wrong way. 

The same question was presented to Ruth. You know 
how she decided it. She gave up her home, her friends, her 
religion ; she followed her mother-in-law, the good Naomi, 
to the land where she found a home and a godly husband, 
and where she became the mother of Obed, who was the 
father of Jesse, who was the father of David, from whom as 
concerning the flesh Christ came ; for he is the son of David. 

Has there not been a turning-point in your life, my young 
reader ? Do you not remember the time, and the place, and 
the person, the great temptation, when the question arose, 
Shall I do this thing, or shall I refuse ? Shall I forget the 
good God who has led me all the days of my life? shall I 
turn my back upon him, and go among those who do not 
know him or care for him in the least ? Shall I give up my 
hopes of heaven — shall I deliberately sell my soul — for the 
pleasures of sin? Shall I shut myself out from all good 
people, and live with the wretched and miserable and lost ; 
and all for nothing but sin ? How did you answer these 
questions? You know better than I do. Did any of you at 
that most trying moment yield to the temptation ? did you 
turn your back on the good and the true ? did you turn away 
from light and peace, and choose the sinful, the wrong? 



RUTH. 95 

Oh, why did you not say to the tempter, " How can I do 
this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" 

2. The second lesson is, God takes care of his own. Orpah 
might have been one of his own. She might have gone with 
Ruth and have been saved. Ruth did turn the right way. 
She became a worshipper of the God of her mother-in-law, the 
God of the Jewish people. She chose him, not for what she 
expected to get in a worldly way, not for a home among the 
rich ; but she deliberately chose to follow her mother and 
her mother's God. And he took her for his child. She had 
no trouble after this ; she knew that the God whom she had 
chosen was able to take care of her, and she gave herself to 
him. See what a blessed choice w r as hers ! Her good mother 
was cared for ; she herself was cared for ; and she had the 
distinguished honor of being an ancestress of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; for thirteen hundred years after this, the Saviour, 
Christ the Lord, was born in this very city ; as we celebrate 
his glorious birth every Christmas day. 

My readers, the question is before you to-day. It may be 
another turning-point in your life. What will you do? 
The choice must be made by you. You must answer the 
question. Oh, if I could answer it for you ! if I could make 
the choice for you ! 

On one side is the world, its pleasures, its folly, its base- 
ness, its degradation, its foul language, its vileness, its 
unspeakable misery; on the other is the company of the 
good, the pure, the clean, the kind interest of the best people, 
the sure hope that the great God, through Jesus Christ, will 
care for you with infinite love and tenderness in this life, and 
save you forever in the life to come. You have your choice ; 
you can turn to one side or the other, as you please. Which 
way w r ill you turn ? Which will you choose, death or life ? 



But thou hast said, The blood of goat, 

The flesh of rams, I will not prize ; 
A contrite heart, a humble thought, 

Are mine accepted sacrifice. — Sir Walter Scott. 



Few years, no wisdom, no renown, 
Only my life can I lay down ; 
Only my life, Lord, to thy throne 

I bring ! and pray 
That child of thine I may go forth, 
And spread glad tidings through the earth, 
And teach sad hearts to know thy worth — 

Lord, here am I ! — C. Whitmarsh. 



As the child reposing lay 

Ere he sunk in slumber sealed, 

By the lamp's expiring ray 
Israel's God his truth revealed. 

Let me say, with lowly fear, 

w Speak, Lord! I, thy servant, hear." 

" Speak, Lord ! thine omniscient eye 
Follows all my pilgrim way ; 

May the thought that thou art nigh 
Guide in all I do or say. 

Make me truthful and sincere : 

" Speak, Lord ! let thy servant hear." 



96 



CHAPTER VII. 

SAMUEL. 

I will tell you of far-off times, in a far-off country, and 
of a little boy who at a very early age was given up by his 
mother to the service of the Lord in his house. Somewhere 
in the hills of Ephraim, a little way out of Jerusalem on the 
road to Jaffa, there lived a man named Elkanah, who had 
two wives : which it seems was not altogether an unusual 
thing in that day. One of these women, Hannah, was child- 
less ; and she was very sad, and distressed about it ; for at 
that time and long before, and long after, every Hebrew wife 
longed for a son, in the hope that he might be the Messiah. 
Hannah's husband was a devout man, and every year at the 
great annual feast he went with his family to the Lord's 
house at Shiloh to make an offering to the Lord. 

One day when Hannah stood praying with trembling lips, 
but with no spoken words, at the door of the tabernacle, the 
old'priest Eli saw her and rebuked her ; for he supposed she 
was under the influence of wine. It was a thoughtless and 
cruel charge ; but the poor woman bore it meekly, saying, it 
was not so, that she was a woman of a sorrowful spirit, and 
was pouring out her soul unto the Lord. The old priest 
then gave her his blessing and said the Lord would grant her 
prayer. 

And the Lord did hear and answer her prayer ; and when 
afterwards the child was born, the happy mother called him 
Samuel, meaning " asked " or " heard," because, said she, " I 
have asked him of the Lord." 

For a while after this, perhaps three or four years, the 



98 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

mother did not go with her husband in his annual visits to 
the tabernacle at Shiloh. She could not go, she said, until 
her child was weaned. And when that time came she pre- 
sented herself with her offering of bullocks and flour and 
wine before the high priest Eli, and said that she was the 
woman he had spoken to three or four years before, and here 
was her little boy. And she had come to lend him to the 
Lord; but the lending was really giving, for she never 
claimed him again, and she left him with the old priest to 
dwell in the Lord's house. 

Did it not seem hard to take the little fellow from home 
while he was so young, a home that he would never go back 
to ? For, though the mother often went to see her little boy 
after this, so far as we know he never went home again. 

And of what use could he be in the Lord's house ? What 
could a little boy just weaned do in the temple? I suppose 
he could do nothing at first ; he must be cared for as other 
children of his age were cared for. He must be looked after 
every day, he must be watched and helped, he must be petted 
and loved ; and there must have been loving hands and kind 
hearts about him every day. 

So his mother left him there with the Lord and his servant 
Eli. I think the heart of the old priest must have warmed 
toward the little lad thus thrown into his arms, for his own 
sons were, alas ! not good boys, they were very wicked. How 
they could have become so it is not easy to say ; their father 
must either have neglected them or their mother did, or else, 
like some boys that I have known, they broke away from 
all restraint and were determined to have their own way. 

What must have been the feelings of the good mother 
when she left her little boy with the old priest at Shiloh and 
went back to her home ! It was the first time she had ever 



SAMUEL. 99 

been away from him. She had watched over him from his 
birth. All his wants she had attended to. She had no chil- 
dren until he was born, and she had devoted herself to him. 
Every night she may have tucked him into his little bed and 
kissed him. Every prayer she offered was for him. When 
old enough to talk, she had told him how to say his prayers 
to the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. There 
was no Lord's prayer then, or she would have taught him to 
say, u Our Father w T ho art in heaven." And as soon as he 
was able to stand alone she taught him how to walk, or to 
run; for children always w^alk before they run. Now all 
this work is over. He has learned to walk ; he has learned 
to pray ; he has been told that he is to be the Lord's child, 
and the mother's care over him is at an end. He will no 
longer sit at her table, or take his food from her hands, or 
learn his lessons from her lips, and sleep in his own little bed 
at home. She has given him up to the Lord's priest, to live 
in the Lord's house as long as he lives. 

Now again the question comes, Why was such a lad, so 
young, received into the Lord's house ? What could he be ? 
what could he do ? 

It may have seemed a small matter that the young boy 
should be shut up away from his home life, away from all 
company of his own age ; dedicated, consecrated to the Lord. 
To many people that looked on, it was not worth a thought 
at all. As parents nowadays who have given their chil- 
dren to the Lord do not know w T hat they may become, so 
neither did this good mother nor the aged priest know what 
the Lord would do with this little lad. 

The boy " ministered unto the Lord before Eli." What 
were these services ? They must have been small and slight, 
for he was only a little lad. He could at least feed the lamps 



100 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

with the olive oil; he could bring the incense to the priest; 
he slept in the holy place, ami his special duty was to put 
out the sacred candlestick, and to open the doors at sunrise. 

You would think that everything was most favorable to 
the education and the training of this boy for whatever the 
Lord may have intended him to be and do. In such a life, 
so carefully guarded, you might think there was no tempta- 
tion to evil. Living in the Lord's house, what could hurt 
that innocent young life ? Ah, there is no place secure from 
temptation. No walls, however high and strong, can keep 
out sin ; no life, however secluded and solitary, can be free 
from temptations to evil. The good old priest had two sons 
(who were either big boys or young men). They were every 
day in company with this lad, and they were evil and corrupt 
and base. They defied the authority of their father ; they 
profaned the Lord's house ; they corrupted the Lord's peo- 
ple. If the mother of Samuel had known the character of 
these two sons of Eli whom her son must see so much of 
every day, how anxious and distressed she would have been ! 
For her care over him was not quite at an end, although she 
had given him unto the Lord. She still loved him and 
prayed for him. And as she sat at home thinking of him 
and wondering what she could do for him, she thought she 
would make him a little coat, and take it to him when she 
went up to the tabernacle at the annual feast. No doubt the 
priests of the tabernacle gave him a little garment like their 
own, of white linen, in which to minister before the Lord ; 
but " his mother, every year, apparently at the only time of 
their meeting, gave him a little mantle reaching down to his 
feet over the other dress, and such as he retained as his badge 
until the latest times of his life." * 

* Dean Stanley. 



SAMUEL. 101 

What must the mother's thoughts have been as she sat 
working over that little coat ! Every stitch she set, every 
thread she drew, was a prayer to God for her dear boy. 
Every time she held it up she saw a picture of her boy within 
its folds. Every mother who has been separated from her 
boy, every boy who has been separated from his mother, 
knows how the heart goes out in love to the absent one. 

So Samuel's childhood passed, and some time after this, 
but while he was still a child (for the language means a young 
child), he was asleep in the tabernacle when he received his 
first call. It was in the dark night; everything was still; the 
priests were asleep, Eli was asleep. Samuel was by himself in 
the holy place, when he was awakened by a voice calling him 
by name. The sleep of healthy childhood is profound, not 
easily disturbed, but this voice could rouse any sleeper. The 
little lad, hearing his own name, started up quickly and said, 
" Here am I," and, naturally supposing it was Eli's voice, 
went to the old priest to know what he wanted. " Here am I ; 
for thou calledst me." But he had to awaken him. The 
priest had heard no voice. " I called not/' said he ; " lie 
down again." 

Twice after this did the voice call Samuel, and three times 
did the gentle boy go and call up the old priest with the 
same message. Did you ever know a boy who could be 
awakened three times out of a sound sleep without losing 
his temper and crying out angrily ? I am sure I never knew 
a man who could bear this strain upon his temper without 
some sharp words of rebuke. 

Samuel did not know what it meant ; the old priest did 
not know what it meant, though now he was thoroughly 
aroused. The word of the Lord was precious in those days 
(precious because it Avas rare). For some time there had been 



102 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

no open vision, no published utterance of a prophet. Sam- 
uel, from his extreme youth, could not know whose the voice 
was ; but Eli, old and feeble though he was in body and in 
faith, knew that it was the voice of the Lord, and he said, 
" Go, lie down : and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou 
shalt say, Speak, Lord ; for thy servant heareth." 

The voice could not have been simply a voice in a dream 
(it will not do to explain it in this way) ; it must have been a 
real voice breaking on the stillness of the night ; but now 
"the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, 
Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak ; for thy 
servant heareth." 

Then came those awful words which the poor lad heard 
and remembered, but could hardly have understood. It was 
a message to Eli pronouncing the doom of his house. The 
voice ceased ; the boy lay still, the night passed, the morning 
came ; he arose, opened the doors of the tabernacle, but was 
afraid to tell Eli what he had heard. But the old man called 
him and asked him what the Lord had said, and Seeing prob- 
ably some reluctance in the boy to speak, he charged him 
most solemnly to keep back nothing. Thus adjured, the boy 
told him the fearful words which were enough to overwhelm 
him and crush him to the earth. When he had ended, the 
old man simply said, u It is the Lord : let him do what 
seemeth him good." 

What an affecting sight! An old man, a priest of the 
Lord, bowed with the weight of years and of cares, full of 
grief and shame for the evil conduct of his dissolute sons, with 
the added horror of knowing that he might have restrained 
his sons and did not, standing before a little lad and hearing 
from his childish lips those words so distressing, so hopeless, 
so awful as to make the ears of all who heard them tingle ! 



SAMUEL. 103 

" The contrast between the terrible doom and the gentle 
creature who announced it gives to this portion of the narra- 
tive a universal interest. It is this side of Samuel's career 
that has been so well caught in the well-known picture of 
Sir Joshua Reynolds." * 

Again, after this in a battle with the Philistines the He- 
brews were defeated, and then, to secure victory in the next 
battle, they proposed to take the ark of God into the field, 
and the two sons of Eli carried it there. But it was too late : 
the anger of God was against his people; they were again 
overthrown, the ark was taken, the two sons of Eli were slain. 

The old man their father, still the judge and the priest, 
sat by the side of the street waiting for news from the battle ; 
for he trembled for the ark of God. Perhaps he had not 
been willing that it should be taken to the field. Then there 
came from the army a swift runner, a messenger, with the 
news. His clothes were torn, there was earth on his head, 
lie was covered with dust. His appearance told the story. 
The sad news soon spread over the city ; the crying and the 
noise reached old Eli. The man came to him. He told him 
that Israel had fled, that there had been a great slaughter, 
that his two sons were dead, and that the ark of God was 
taken. The poor old man received the news as blows, one 
after the other, upon his heart, — the overthrow of the troops, 
the terrible slaughter, the flight with the horrors of the re- 
lentless pursuit, and even the death of his two sons; but 
when the last sad news came, " the ark of God is taken," he 
could hear no more, he could bear no more; he fell backward 
off his seat by the gate, and broke his neck and died. 

This is but a glimpse of the early life of Samuel ; and I 
have space only to say that for some twenty years biblical 

* Dean Stanley. 



104 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

history is silent about him, but that afterwards he became 
one of the greatest if not the very greatest character in Old 
Testament histoiy, except Moses and David. He was a judge, 
which meant the chief ruler, a warrior and a prophet. When 
the people in their thoughtless folly grew tired of his rule, he 
became what the English people called Richard Neville, Earl 
of Warwick, a king maker, for he anointed Saul to be their 
king. 

Of the many lessons which may be drawn from this story, 
take two or three. 

1. One is for my young readers. You see that this young 
child, this little boy, was useful in the Lord's house. That 
house in Samuel's day was only a tent, called a tabernacle, for 
the great temple was not yet built. The little lad was left 
there by his mother for two purposes ; one was for education, 
and the other was to serve the Lord. Really it was one and 
the same purpose then, though in our day we make a division 
of the subject. It is an interesting and affecting thought 
that this lad had no playfellows ; he was the only child in 
the house. His teacher was the old priest Eli, too old to 
have much sympathy with a young child. Yet the boy 
ministered before the Lord, and this was his religious edu- 
cation. 

Does it ever seem to you that you have anything to do ; 
that you can do anything in the Lord's house ? Don't you 
know that every Sunday when you go to church you hear 
words of good counsel from those who are appointed to speak 
to you there ? Don't you know that you can help in the 
services ? Can you not by your quiet, respectful attention, 
by your thoughtful interest, listen to the reading of the 
Scriptures? Can you not by your hearty singing of the 
hymns and your patient listening to the addresses, and by 



SAMUEL. 105 

your joining in the prayers, minister before the Lord in his 
house ? 

Some of the sweetest church music ever heard has been 
made by young people's voices in the great churches. Don't 
you want to make church music sweet and beautiful, as it 
ought to be and as you can help to make it? 

2. The second lesson is for my older readers. The two 
sons of Eli were also brought up in the Lord's house. They 
had careful training, they too ministered before the Lord ; 
but, alas ! they had no heart in it. The morning and even- 
ing sacrifice, the daily service, had no meaning to them ; they 
tired of it; they hated it. They dragged themselves to it, 
or they were compelled to attend it and assist at it ; they 
were glad when it was all over and they could return to their 
own ways, their wicked and corrupt thoughts. 

Are there any of my readers who have no interest in the 
Sunday church services, no interest in the daily family wor- 
ship, who drag themselves to it, or who go only because they 
are required ? If so, there is something wrong — wrong in 
you or defective in the character of the services. 

If the fault is with you, in your want of interest or atten- 
tion, see to it that you change your attitude, turn yourselves 
round ; remember this is the service of God, and that you 
cannot, except at your peril, be indifferent to it or join in it 
with only half a heart. 

If the fault is in the character of the services, they who 
are responsible for them ought to see to it that the services 
are made more appropriate and attractive. 

The boy Samuel grew up to be a good man, honored of 
God and of man. He was humble, submissive, teachable, 
truthful, devoted, and pure in heart and life. 

The two sons of Eli were disobedient, profane, untruthful, 



106 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



hypocritical, and impure in heart and in life. They were 
not simply sinners, not sinners in secret, not solitary sinners, 
but open and unblushing sinners, even in the sanctuary; 
they sinned together and with other people ; they sinned and 
they perished. 

3. We do not know when the voice of the Lord will come 
to us. 

Are there not boys and girls whose mothers have given 
them to the Lord as the mother of Samuel did her boy? 
Are there not boys and girls whose parents every night kneel 
down and ask God to take care of their sons and daughters, 
and to make them good boys and good girls, so that they 
may grow up to be good men and women ? And do you not 
sometimes feel when you lie awake at night and cannot sleep, 
you know not why, — do you not sometimes feel that you ought 
to give yourselves to the Lord? It may be that these thoughts 
come to you because your mother is praying for you, and the 
good Spirit of God comes and speaks to your heart because 
your mother is praying for you. Ah ! you cannot tell what 
good influences are about you waiting to bless you if you 
will only open your hearts to them. 




An Eastern Gateway. 



Angels of life and death alike are his ; 

"Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er ; 
Who then would wish or dare, believing this, 

Against his messengers to shut the door ? — Longfellow. 



How much more may we say that boys and girls are "dead" — dead in 
spirit, dead in the worst kind of death — if they have lost all care for God, 
for truth and righteousness and kindness ? Like the Shunammite's son, 
who was both asleep and dead, you need to be awaked ; you need to be 
quickened into life. — Samuel Cox. 



Remember the truth which is here so touchingly impressed upon us, 
that we cannot tell what a day or what an hour may bring forth ; that " the 
race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." — Macduff. 



108 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 



This is a very sad story. A young boy, a child of prom- 
ise, is given to his mother as a reward for kindness shown to 
one of the Lord's prophets. The little lad comes, bringing 
light into the house and cheering and gladdening the declin- 
ing years of the old father. But the lad is cut off in the 
very beginning of his life. 

It is the harvest season. The little fellow, tired of play- 
ing about the house, gets his mother's consent to go out to 
the field. In all the bustle and excitement of busy men and 
women and children, reaping and binding into sheaves and 
gathering into shocks the golden grain, the child will see 
his father, and be taken in his arms and shown the busy 
scene. It is a bright, hot day ; the hills are covered wkh 
rich green grass and many-colored flowers, the valleys are 
waving with the yellow bending grain. 

Not long is the child permitted to stay and see the bustle 
and stir of busy men, the sharp-ringing sickles and the gath- 
ered sheaves. The hot sun beats upon him, so unused to its 
fierce rays. He looks up to his father with a pitiful, appeal- 
ing cry, and says (what so many other children have said 
from that day to this), " My head, my head !" The father, 
thinking it is nothing serious — only a headache — says to a 
larger boy who seems to have had charge of the child, " Carry 
him to his mother." 

You know, when we are sick, how we wish to be at home. 
And when a boy is sick, a young boy, how he wants to go to 
his mother ! For there is nothing so tender, so soothing, so 

109 



110 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

helpful to a sick child as his mother's love ; there is no touch 
so delicate as hers; there is no kiss so comforting as hers. 
From no other hand does he receive the bitter medicine so 
patiently as from her hand. 

When this sick boy reaches home, his mother, seeing that 
he is ill, does what your mother has done to you, my reader, 
when you were sick : she takes him in her lap. I do not 
know how old he was nor how large he was ; but he was not 
too old nor too large for his mother to lift him from the arms 
of the boy who brought him home, to her own knees, where 
he lay suffering, burning with fever, until noon, when he 
died. Whether there was a physician at hand we do not 
know. Doubtless there were cooling draughts, and bandages 
for his aching head ; but the sun-stroke was fatal, — the boy 
died. The poor mother was almost paralyzed with grief. 
How sudden this was ! Full of life and joy in the morn- 
ing — dead at noon ! A child of promise, a gift from the 
Lord, sent to brighten the house and cheer her old age, cut 
oif at the very beginning of life. 

With an instinct true to nature, the heart-broken mother 
takes the dead child in her arms, carries him up the short 
stairway to the chamber of the man of God, the prophet who 
had promised she should have the child. This chamber on 
the wall she had had made for this same man of God. She 
lays the child on the prophet's bed, shuts the door upon him 
and leaves him there. 

You know the rest of the story : how she called for her 
husband, and in her poor distracted condition — or unwilling 
at once to tell him of their great loss — she asked for a young 
man, and one of the swift asses that she might ride to Mount 
Carmel with all speed to Elisha the prophet. She mounted 
the beast ; the young man was charged to drive rapidly ; and 



THE SHUXAMMITE'S SON. Ill 

no matter what might happen, lie must not slacken his speed 
until he was bidden. You know how she would not be put 
off by Elisha sending his servant with his staff; how she fell 
at his feet in her great sorrow, and would not be put away, 
but could only cry out in her bitter agony, "Did I desire a 
son of my lord f did I not say, Do not deceive me f" 

There was no need to say more ; there was no need to tell 
the prophet the sad story of the child's short sickness and 
sudden death. He saw it all at a glance. He arose and fol- 
lowed the broken-hearted mother to her house ; he ascended 
the stairs ; he went in. His servant had gone before and 
laid the prophet's staff on the face of the child, but with 
no effect. He shut the door ; no one was in the room but 
himself and the dead boy ; he prayed to God ; he stretched 
himself on the dead body ; life returned ; the blood came 
back into its natural channels; the child opened his eyes. 
The prophet called the mother ; her faith had never wavered ; 
she lifted her dear child again and went down into the house. 

From this very beautiful but very sad story many lessons 
might be drawn which ought to help us to look upon life as 
it is, and show us what we ought to make of it. I mention 
only a few : 

Young people may die. 

Young people may die suddenly. 

Young people may die though their dearest friends are 
beside them. 

Young people may die though their friends are good and 
pray for them. 

1. Young people may die. You all know this as well as I 
do. If you go into a grave-yard, you will see many short 
graves. If you read a daily paper, you will see that many 
of the deaths are of very young people. It has been said 



112 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

that one half of the people that are born into the world die 
either in infancy or in early childhood. There is hardly 
any person who cannot remember that he has lost a young 
brother or sister or friend. Now if this is true — if you are 
as likely to die as other people — is it not worth your while 
to ask yourself whether you are living as you will wish 
you had lived when you are called away ? Let me ask you, 
Are you living as you ought to live ? I do not expect you 
to answer the question to me ; but let each one answer it for 
hi-mself. Are you living as you ought to live ? You need 
not ask me what I mean by this question, for you know well 
enough what I mean. If you are doing every day what you 
ought not to do ; if you are in the habit of saying bad words, 
and thinking bad thoughts, and doing bad things ; if you are 
neglecting your prayers, and turning away from good things 
which are said to you, — you know very well that you are not 
living as you ought to live, and are not prepared to die. 

2. Young people may die suddenly. You see how it was 
with this lad in the story which I have given you here. 
And this is not a peculiar case. You and I have heard of 
many as sudden deaths as this. A little child, playing in the 
street in summer time, tries to run across the street in front 
of a street car, slips on a piece of apple-skin or orange-peel 
which some other thoughtless child has thrown upon the 
pavement, falls under the horses' feet or under the wheels of 
the heavy car, and in a moment is crushed to death. The 
father, coming home in the evening from his long day's work 
and expecting to meet his little boy's smile, is met by a mes- 
senger who tells him that his little boy is dead — that he was 
dead before they could get word to his father that he was 
hurt. You have heard of such cases. A fire breaks out in 
the dead of night. The family are all sound asleep, especially 



THE SHUXAMMITE'S SON. 113 

the young children. The father and mother are easily aroused. 
All is alarm and confusion. The young children sleep soundly, 
are not easily awakened ; before they can be reached, they are 
suffocated with smoke, and are burned to death. Or, again, 
some young girls are at work in a mill, in an upper story ; 
the cry of fire is heard; there is a general panic; everybody 
is beside himself; the way down stairs is cut off by the flames 
or by the smoke ; the girls cannot be reached ; they are suf- 
focated, and burned to death. Or, again, the diphtheria or 
some other deadly disease attacks a child in the night, and 
soon assumes a fatal character ; and in spite of all the skill 
of the doctor, the child dies. Now in all these cases — which 
are not merely imaginary cases — there is no time to prepare 
for death ; and if there were time, everything is most un- 
favorable for it. The best time is now, while you are in 
good health and have all your thoughts about you. 

3. Young people may die though their dearest friends are 
about them. It was so in the case of the little lad whose 
story you have heard to-day in this chapter. He was with 
his father when he was taken sick. He was at once car- 
ried home to his mother. She took him on her lap. You 
know how tenderly she must have nursed him ; how every- 
body in the house must have done everything that' could be 
done to keep off the angel of death. But it could not be ; 
no amount of love and care, no remedies that could be found, 
no medical aid within reach, was of any use whatever to save 
that young life. And it is so every day now. A rich man's 
child is taken sick; a doctor is sent for. If he is slow in 
coming, another is sent for, and another, until there may be 
several in the room in consultation ; and all that money can 
do in getting medicines and other remedies is done, and all 
that love can do in careful nursing and kind attention from 



114 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

the parents and bisters and all the friends is done, but all to 
no purpose : the child must die. 

4. Young people may die though their friends are good and 
are praying that they may get well. It must have been so in 
this case. His mother was a godly woman. Her child was 
given to her in answer to prayer, and because she had been 
kind to one of the Lord's prophets ; and as the boy lay on 
her lap that hot day in summer, she must have cried to God to 
have mercy on the child and to spare his life, that he might 
live to be a good man and prove a blessing to his parents. 
And she must have prayed that God would spare her too, 
the poor mother, and save her from the great sorrow of losing 
her little boy. And is it not so now ? There is many a sick 
child to-day — ay, at this hour, while you are reading this 
page. There are many Christian mothers and fathers who 
are kneeling around little cribs where young children are 
struggling with spasms, or panting with fever, or choking 
with some disease of the throat ; and friends, other friends, 
are all praying together and with these parents that God 
would have mercy and spare young lives. It seems very 
hard that children should die. So young, so helpless — chil- 
dren so young that they have hardly ever been out of their 
mothers' arms, so young that they do not khow their right 
hand from their left — why should they die ? Ah, we do not 
know, we cannot tell ; but we know that it is so, for we 
read and hear of them almost every day. * Many a rich 
man would give everything he has in the world if he could 
only save the life of his dear little child; but no money, no 
prayers, can keep off the angel of death when once his cold 
hand is laid upon the heart. And if God should send his 
angel for you, reader, you may be sure that no matter how 
many friends are about you, and no matter how good they 



THE SHUNAMMITE'S SON. 115 

are and how much they pray for you, they cannot save you. 
Is it not well then, now while you have life and health, to 
see to it that you do what you can do to live so that when- 
ever you are called, you may not be found living in sin ? 

None of us can tell when our last day shall come, or what 
will be the circumstances which will surround us at that 
dread hour. We do not know whether we shall be surprised 
by the sudden and unexpected coming of the angel of death, 
or whether we shall have the warning of lingering and wast- 
ing sickness, for that last change. We do not know whether 
we shall die in the presence of the nearest and dearest of our 
friends, and with such alleviations as sympathetic affection 
can bring to us, or whether we shall meet the last great enemy 
among strangers or in a public hospital. We do not know 
whether we shall die on the land or at sea, by violence or by 
the ordinary visitation of nature ; nor is it very important 
that we should know anything at all about that. But it is 
important — it is of the utmost importance — that we should 
be always prepared. And I ask you not to delay this prep- 
aration. You need not retire from the world, nor from the 
society of those whom you love best, in order to make this 
preparation. You need not withdraw from nor abate your 
interest in any lawful occupation, unless you are too much 
absorbed in it now. You may go about your daily duties as 
usual, doing right and only right in your lawful callings; 
but see to it that your heart is right in the sight of God ; see 
to it that you are living in daily communion w r ith him ; see 
to it that you love his word, that you love his people, that 
you love his day ; see to it that you are at peace with each 
other and all others everywhere ; that you are not living to 
yourself, but are trying to be good and to do good, and thus 
show your love to God who is the Father of all, and to Jesus 



116 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Christ the Saviour of all who believe; and then it will 
matter but little to you, comparatively, whether you die at 
home in the midst of your household, or whether violence 
overtake you leaving you no time to think, or even to offer a 
prayer. 

But you must be a real Christian, not a mere professor of 
religion — not a member of the church merely. You must 
feel that you belong to Christ ; that you are not your own, 
but are bought with a price. You must feel that you have 
enlisted under the banner of Christ as a soldier, and have 
henceforth no will but his. If he leads you through great 
trials and sufferings, you must not hesitate nor repine, nor 
think it hard. If your life is to be a series of struggles and 
afflictions, you must remember it is he who appoints them. 
If he leads you even to martyrdom, as he did Stephen, you 
must be willing to go and die. 

How can I better close this chapter than by giving you 
this beautiful hymn ? — 

The Son of God goes forth to war, 

A kingly crown to gain ; 
His blood-red banner streams afar : 

Who follows in his train ? 
"Who best can drink his cup of woe, 

Triumphant over pain ? 
" Who patient bears his cross below, 

He follows in his train." 

The martyr first, whose eagle eye r 

Could pierce beyond the grave, 
Who saw his Master in the sky 

And called on him to save ; 
Like him with pardon on his tongue 

In midst of mortal pain, 
He prayed for them that did the wrong : 

Who follows in his train ? 



THE SHUSTAMMITE S SON. 



117 



A glorious band, the chosen few 

On whom the Spirit came, 
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew, 

And mocked the cross and flame. 
They met the tyrant's brandished steel, 

The lion's gory mane ; 
They bowed their necks the death to feel: 

AVho follows in their train ? 

A noble army, men and boys, 

The matron and the maid, 
Around the Saviour's throne rejoice, 

In robes of light arrayed. 
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven 

Through peril, toil and pain : 
O God, to us may grace be given 

To follow in their train ! 




In secret love the Master 
To each one whispers low, 
u I am at hand, — work faster ; 

Behold the sunset glow !" — Barbara Miller. 



One by one thy duties wait thee : 

Let thy whole strength go to each ; 
Let no future dreams elate thee, — 

Learn thou first what these can teach. 

— Adelaide A. Procter. 



The latest gospel in this world is, know thy work and do it. Think 
it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable indi- 
vidual. Know what thou canst work at, and work at it like Hercules. — 
Thomas Carlyle. 



I saw the Lord of life bending over his bench, fashioning some lowly 
utensil for some housewife of Nazareth. And he would receive payment 
for it, too ; for he at least could see no disgrace in the order of things that 
his Father had appointed. — MacDonald. 



118 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CARPENTER. 

After our Lord's encounter with the demoniac on the 
eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, from whom he cast out 
the devils, and his return in the fisherman's boat to the west- 
ern shore of the lake ; and after the healing of the woman 
who had had a wasting disease many years, and raising from 
the dead the daughter of Jairus, a girl twelve years of age, — 
our Lord turned his steps toward that part of the country 
where he had been brought up, in which lay the city of 
Nazareth. 

On the Sabbath he went into the synagogue, and, as his 
custom was, began to teach. How vividly do we recall an- 
other visit to this same synagogue and the sermon he preached 
there, when the people rose up and seized him and led him 
to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, and 
would have cast him down headlong if he had not delivered 
himself from their dreadful purpose ! 

What our Lord said in the synagogue on this Sabbath we 
do not know. Probably he had time to say very little (his 
words are not recorded), for the people seem to have inter- 
rupted him by saying, " From whence hath this man these 
things? [that is, the things he was saying] and what wisdom 
is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works 
are wrought by his hands ?" 

They had heard of the wonderful v/orks; some of his 
hearers must have seen the healing of the sick woman. If 
they did not see the raising of the daughter of Jairus, they 
must have heard of it immediately. Some of them must 

119 



120 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

have heard of the man out of whom the legion of devils was 
cast, and who went home to preach Christ to his friends ; 
and they were amazed that one whom they had known from 
his childhood without seeing anything very remarkable about 
him could have this divine wisdom and could do such won- 
derful works ; so they broke out in that question which was 
answered in the asking : " Is not this the carpenter ?" 

Yes, it is the carpenter. It may be a most unpleasant 
conviction to you men of Nazareth, you rulers of the syn- 
agogue, you men of the world ; you men who bind heavy 
burdens on other men's shoulders, and touch them not to 
lighten them even by as much as a little finger can lift ; you 
men, rich, proud, haughty, who live upon the labor of other 
people. You may not like to think it, but this man who 
says these wonderful words, who does these wonderful works, 
is the carpenter. You have known him all his life, until he 
left home lately ; you know his mother ; you know him who 
was called his father. He is indeed the carpenter. 

" And they were offended at him," or rather offended in 
him. They could not or would not understand him. From 
the time when the Lord Jesus returned from Jerusalem, 
where he had gone with his parents at twelve years of age, 
to the time when he entered upon his public ministry, as he 
" began to be about thirty years of age," we know certainly 
very little about him. It is a period of eighteen years, — a 
very large part of his short life on earth. We know, indeed, 
that he was subject unto his parents, for so we are told in the 
gospel. But in what did his subjection consist? What was 
he doing all these years ? 

No doubt he went to school some years after the return 
from the holy city on that memorable occasion. We like to 
ask questions that cannot be answered now, such as, What 



THE CARPENTER. 121 

kind of a school did he attend? Who was his teacher? 
What subjects did he study? Who were his schoolmates? 
Where and what kind of a place was the school-house? 
How long did he continue as a school-boy ? So far as we 
know, his school-life was like that of boys of his ow T n age 
and station in the city of Nazareth. Except that he never 
did anything wrong, that his life was pure and holy, there is 
no reason to suppose that there was anything very striking 
or peculiar in his boy-life at school. 

But when he grew in years and strength he must have left 
school and gone into the workshop of Joseph the carpenter ; 
for it was time now for him to set about the learning of a 
trade, as was the custom of Jewish boys at that day, and 
there was a common saying that " a Jew who did not have 
his son taught a trade did, in effect, teach him to be a thief." 
As the young man was to learn a trade, where could he so 
well learn as in the shop of his reputed father, Joseph ? and 
what trade so suitable as that which Joseph worked at, the 
carpenter's trade ? 

A carpenter's shop in those far-off days must have been 
very different from one in our times. A modern English 
artist, Mr. Holman Hunt, has given us an interior view of a 
carpenter's shop at Nazareth. It is a view, of course, of one 
in our own times, such as he saw; but the customs have 
changed so little in those eastern countries that with some 
allowance for the much greater number of tools now in use 
and their finer finish, we may easily imagine what the shop 
looked like in which our Lord worked as a young learner at 
the trade of a carpenter. There must have been a work- 
bench, and saws and axes and hammers, and tools to bore 
holes with, and measuring-lines or rods, a square, a line and 
plummet, planes and drawing-knives, and the more simple 



122 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

tools indispensable at that day, as now, in a carpenter's shop. 
There were chests in which the tools were packed when car- 
ried from place to place ; and when not packed in chests, the 
various tools were hung on nails or pegs on the walls, so that 
everything might be in its own place, and so that it could be 
found even in the dark. 

It is interesting to think that the work of these carpenters 
was not all done in their shop. They must have gone here 
and there as their services were needed. If repairs were 
needed or if a new house were to be built, they must go to 
the place, wherever it was, carrying their box of tools, as 
carpenters and builders do now. Think also of the workers 
at other trades, the other mechanics, the stone-masons, the 
plasterers, the workers in iron. What acquaintances and 
friendships must have been formed ! How would these men, 
these day-laborers, regard the young carpenter? We need 
be in no doubt about this, for the gospel tells us that as Jesus 
increased in stature — that is, as he grew upward to manhood — 
he " increased in favor with God and man." 

There is a tradition, which is not improbable, that before 
our Lord began his public ministry, and while yet at work 
as a carpenter, Joseph died, and that the care of his mother 
fell upon her son. She was poor; Joseph was poor; and 
daily labor was necessary to sustain the family. At one time 
the people asked, " Is not this the carpenter's son f" again 
they ask, " Is not this the carpenter?" 

If he then became the head of the family and the master 
of the shop, it would be necessary for him to buy materials 
for building, to go here and there where lumber was sold, 
even to distant cities, perhaps to Tyre on the sea-coast. How 
many people would he meet in the markets where materials 
were sold ! how just and true he must have been in his pur- 



THE CARPENTER. 123 

chases and in his payments ! There was no taking advantage 
of the ignorance of him with whom he was dealing; no 
promising to do anything without the intention of perform- 
ing ; no sharp practice. 

And think of his daily work ! It was hard work. The 
carpenter has not an easy life. It is constant toil from morn- 
ing till evening, day after day, out of doors in fair weather, 
and often with exposure of life, and in doors in dust and the 
litter of the shop when the weather is wet and stormy. Think 
of our Lord doing this day after day and year after year, prob- 
ably for a large part of the eighteen years in which we have 
no record of his life ! 

It is very strange. It certainly brings us much nearer the 
Son of God to know that he lived in our world ; that he was 
the son of her who was blessed above all women ; that he 
lived a life of purity, of poverty, of labor, before he began 
to say the wonderful words and do the wonderful things 
which led the people of his own town to ask, " Is not this 
the carpenter ?" 

It interests us to think that our Lord had other work to 
do besides building and repairing houses. All the furniture 
of the dwellings was made by carpenters ; and the ploughs 
and other farming tools also, simple as they were, came from 
the carpenter's shop. Yokes for oxen were probably made 
by this young carpenter; and we may be sure that as his 
sacred hands fashioned the heavy wood and formed it into 
curves to fit the neck, he smoothed the rough surface so that 
it should be as easy as possible to the dumb creatures ; and 
his gracious words, " Come unto me. all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me. . . . For my yoke is easy, and 
my burden is light" — these words have a tender and touch- 



124 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

ing meaning when we remember that his own hands may- 
have fashioned the yoke for the patient and faithful ox. 

How good it is to think that in all little things he was 
faithful; that in toil and service he rendered to all their 
dues, never slighting his work, never failing to pay his 
debts ; that he must have been kind and helpful and sym- 
pathizing to his neighbors, or he would not have grown in 
their favor ; that he went about doing good ; that if any one 
trespassed against him, he must have striven to be reconciled 
to his brother ! No Lazarus lay uncared for at his gate ; no 
robbed and wounded and helpless traveller lay by the road- 
side neglected and passed by by him. 

It is very good to know that when the Sabbath came he 
was at his place in the synagogue. He did not say that he 
was too tired with his week's work to go to worship with 
the people of God. He did not feel that it was all very well 
for rich people and %yell-to-do people to keep the Sabbath, 
but that as he was a laboring man, a mechanic, he needed 
the Sabbath for rest, and would not go to church or to the 
synagogue. And it is good to know that, toiling and work- 
ing man as he was, he could take time from his exacting 
labor and spend days at a time to go up to Jerusalem to the 
great annual feasts. 

One of the evils of high civilization, or culture as it is 
called, is the idea that work is degrading; that while to 
work with the mind, the brain, is dignified and elevating, 
manual labor — labor with the hands — is degrading. And 
men strive to get rich so as to place their children above the 
necessity of working with their hands for a support; and 
while our high-schools are filled with the sons and daughters 
of persons who work with their hands for their daily bread 
and to support and educate their children, very many of 



THE CARPENTER. 125 

these sons and daughters, when educated, are unwilling to 
work with their hands, but seek some other, and as they 
foolishly think more honorable, means of living; and the con- 
sequence is that the learned professions, so called, are crowded 
with persons seeking a pecuniary and not always honest living. 
Almost every day I am called on or written to by young men 
of good education who are seeking situations in banks or 
railroad companies or insurance companies; anywhere else 
than in carpenter shops, in machine shops or on farms. 

We love to think of the apostle Paul as a worker with his 
hands — as a mechanic, a tent-maker. No doubt he did his 
work well, even if he made the small, rude tents that were 
sold to ordinary travellers, merchants, peddlers and pilgrims. 
And it requires no great stretch of imagination to suppose 
that he might sometimes have been in want, even in w r ant of 
work ; and, as another has written, that while Aquila the Jew 
and Priscilla his wife, themselves tent-makers, though people 
of substance, were living in exile in Corinth and supporting 
themselves by their trade, there may have stood at their door 
one day a little man " with weak eyes and of feeble presence, 
who said that he too was a Jew and a tent-maker and wanted 
work."* Did Paul think that it was degrading to be a 
mechanic, educated as he was? No; he preached in the 
day time to all who would listen to him, and at night w T orked 
with his hands in the house of the friends who had sheltered 
him. Did our Lord think he was degraded by being a me- 
chanic ? No ; he was rich, but for our sakes he became poor 
that we through his poverty might become rich. He had all 
power ; the silver and the gold were his, and the cattle upon a 
thousand hills ; but for fifteen or eighteen years, probably, he 
worked in a carpenter's shop. 

* Samuel Cox. 



126 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

I do not know whether any of my readers wish to become 
carpenters. It matters little, perhaps, what trade you learn, 
provided you are determined to support yourself by honest 
labor. The apostle Paul once held up his toil-worn hands 
and said to his friends, "Ye yourselves know, that these 
hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that 
were with me" — showing clearly that he had supported him- 
self and those that were dependent upon him. But if any 
of you should become carpenters, you may have the great 
satisfaction of knowing that you are, in this respect at least, 
following the example of our blessed Lord. 

The artist I referred to just now, painted another picture. 
It is the interior of the shop in which Jesus worked. It is, 
of course, imaginary. The mother of Jesus is bending over 
a chest in which are kept the rich vases which the Magi, 
the three wise men, brought to the infant Jesus at Bethlehem. 
Her young son, not yet fully grown, is standing in the open 
door, that looks toward the west. The sun is setting, and 
the long day's work is done. The young carpenter is stretch- 
ing out his arms in weariness, and the sun makes a shadow 
from the figure, on the floor, in the form of a cross. His 
mother raises her head and sees that fatal shadow, and her 
heart is pierced as with a sword, as was foretold by old Simeon. 

I close with the words of another * : " Character makes 
the man ; and there is no character so strong and so beautiful 
as that which is based upon a real personal knowledge of 
Jesus Christ. It is not jewelled fingers, nor smart clothing, 
nor aristocratic airs, that entitle one to what Tennyson calls 

The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 
And soiled with all ignoble use. 

* I. T. Davidson, D.D. 



THE CARPENTER. 



127 



Get a living grasp of Christ ; rely on his merits, breathe his 
spirit, walk in his steps ; and whether, like Nehemiah, you 
are cup-bearer to the king, or like Paul stitching canvas in a 
back shop in Corinth, you will be able to command the 
respect of all, will live beloved and will die lamented. Only 
give yourselves fearlessly to the task which God has set 
before you, and 

With a heart for any fate, 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait." 




Nazareth. 



Now in the darkness flame his eyes who saw 
Through all thy virtues that undreamed-of flaw, 
And the calm voice thou never canst forget 
Tells in the silence what thou lackest yet. 

— George Alexander Chadwick. 



Of good they choose the least, 
Despise that which is hest — 
The joyful, heavenly feast 

Which Christ would give them. — Bichard Baxter. 



Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 

May toss him to thy breast. — George Herbert. 



Whoever has an ideal and is making no struggle toward it, is sinking 
into the outer darkness.— George MacDonald. 



128 



CHAPTER X. 

THE YOUNG RULER. 

There must have been a good reason why this particular 
incident was recorded by three of the sacred writers; and 
the reason is, I think, not far to seek. It is a most import- 
ant incident. The question asked of our Lord by this young 
man is the most important question that can possibly be 
asked by any human being, be he high or low, rich or poor, 
old or young. It seems then that these three writers of the 
gospels, no one of whom relates all that our Lord did and 
said, all thought that this history at least should not be left 
out. 

It is the story of a young man who was rich and belonged 
to the ruling class, and who in some way or other had become 
convinced that he was a sinner and needed salvation. AVe 
naturally inquire who he was, what was his name, where he 
lived and how he came to be interested in serious things, and 
why he went to the Lord Jesus for instruction. Very little, 
however, is known about him. We do not know his name 
nor the name of his parents, nor where he lived, nor where 
he was educated, nor what was his chief purpose in life, nor 
who were his companions, nor what became of him after this 
interview with our Lord. In short, we only know that he 
was young, that he was rich, that he was a ruler, and that he 
was anxious about his soul. These, however, are all most 
interesting facts. They would be very interesting facts con- 
cerning any one in our own time. 

It seems, then, that as Jesus went forth, probably from 
some house where he had spent the night, he was met in the 
. 9 129 



130 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

way by a young man, well dressed, probably, and of good 
condition, who came running to him, and kneeled to him, 
and, looking up into his face, asked him what he should do 
that he might have eternal life. 

To us this seems a very abrupt and even startling ques- 
tion, and kneeling to any one in a public place would be 
most extraordinary in our time ; but in the Holy Land, where 
this occurred, neither the question nor the prostration of the 
young man would seem very strange. The first words the 
young man uttered, the very reverent tones of his voice, the 
"Good Master, what shall I do" — these showed what a state 
of mind he was in. The answer Jesus gave was itself a 
question : " Why callest thou me good ?" Then presently 
he adds, "but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- 
mandments''; and in answer to the young man's question, 
" Which ?" — that is, which of the commandments — he gives 
a list of them, thus : 

Thou shalt do no murder ; 

Thou shalt not commit adultery; 

Thou shalt not steal ; 

Thou shalt not bear false witness ; 

Defraud not ; 

Honor thy father and thy mother ; 

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 

And the young man answered, "All these have I kept 
from my youth up : what lack I yet?" Jesus, looking down 
into that face that was turned up to him, regarding him with 
the deepest interest, and loving him, answered, " Yet lackest 
thou one thing : sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto 
the poor, . . . and come, follow me." 

A plain question, and apparently an earnest and honest 
one ; and a plain, direct, simple answer. There was no mis- 



THE YOUXG RULER. 131 

take about the young man's meaning in the question ; there 
was no mistaking the meaning of the Saviour's answer. 

What was the result of this interview, this question and 
answ r er ? So far as the young man was concerned, and so far 
as we know from the Scriptures, no good came to him : for 
the terms were not to his taste; they were too severe; it 
would cost him too much ; he w^as saddened, he was disap- 
pointed ; he did not accept the offer- of eternal life, though 
made by the Son of God himself. He turned away ; and so 
far as we know, this was the turning-point in his life, and 
at present he turned the wrong way. 

But the lesson of the incident is not lost to the world. It 
has been made the text for many a discourse, many an ex- 
hortation, many an appeal to follow Jesus ; and I ask you 
now to look a little closer into the circumstances and see if 
we can find anything that may be useful to us. 

There are so many encouraging things in the history of 
this interview between the young man and our Lord that w r e 
wonder he did not give up all and follow him. 

1. He was young. Unfortunately it is not common for 
young men or boys to desire to know Jesus. They seem to 
think that they can do without him, that his friendship will 
not make them happy, that if they follow him they will not 
be able to do or say or think the things they love to do and 
say and think ; and so they do not care to go near him, much 
less to follow him. And they think that even if they must 
at some time or other seek him and follow him in order to 
have eternal life, there will be time enough for all that here- 
after. There is a long life to live (no one thinks that he 
himself will die young) ; there is plenty of time, they say ; 
there is no danger, and it will be easier after a while than it 
is now. 



132 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

2. He came running. He was in haste. Why ? Would 
not Jesus come along that way again ? Would there not be 
other opportunities ? Instead of running to Jesus, might he 
not wait until Jesus came along his way ? Why should this 
young man make himself so forward as to set out running to 
meet Jesus, when by waiting he might meet him incidentally 
at some Pharisee's house, or walking in the highway? But 
you see his earnestness. ■ He was too much in earnest to think 
of appearances. It might set people to staring sit him as he 
ran ; it was not dignified for a ruler ; but what did he care 
for that? He was too much interested to think or to care 
for what other people said about his haste. It seemed now 
or never to him. This might be the only opportunity he 
would ever have to speak with Jesus, and should he let him 
pass by without speaking to him ? 

3. He kneeled. This shows his great respect. It is not 
certain that the young man meant to offer divine worship to 
the Lord. While he believed him to be a great prpphet who 
could work miracles, he might not have supposed him to be 
divine in the sense that it was proper to worship him. But 
certainly he had the highest respect for our Lord ; he looked 
up to him as a great teacher. He might have heard, before, 
many words from those lips ; he might have seen some of 
those wonderful works. He had faith enough to know that 
Jesus could answer his great question, and he ran and fell 
down on his knees before him and said, " Master, what good 
thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life ?" 

4. He came as a disciple. He was willing to learn. Rich 
and powerful though he might be, a ruler of the synagogue, 
yet he was willing to be taught ; he wanted to be a learner. 
It is not often that one who is young and rich and in high 
position is willing to be taught. Such persons generally 



THE YOUNG RULER. 133 

think that they know enough already. They are not willing 
to admit that they are ignorant of anything worth knowing ; 
and when we find a young person, either man or woman, of 
high position or wealth who is willing to ask questions for 
the sake of learning from those who are older and more ex- 
perienced, it is a most hopeful and attractive feature. 

The wisest men have very much to learn if they are only 
teachable ; and those who know the most are sometimes most 
eager for more knowledge ; but these are not common qual- 
ities. Most people think that they know enough already. 
Here was a man, however, probably well educated, certainly 
rich and influential, who was not only willing but anxious to 
go to a stranger who claimed to be a teacher and ask him the 
greatest, the most interesting, the most important of all ques- 
tions. It was one young man asking another young man a 
great question ; for Jesus was most probably about his own age. 

5. He came apparently willing to obey. There was noth- 
ing insincere in him. It was not curiosity to hear what a 
famous teacher would say when spoken to in this abrupt 
way. He did not wish to put hard questions to him and 
perplex or vex him, as the Pharisees vainly tried to do. He 
came supposing in his own heart that he was willing to do 
anything that might be required of him. When Saul was 
converted, on his way to Damascus, his first question was, 
u Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" When the jailer at 
Philippi was awakened at midnight by the earthquake, and 
when a not less great convulsion in his soul showed him that 
he was a great sinner, he fell down before Paul and Silas and 
said, " Sirs, what must I do to be saved ?" 

But, alas, this young man, though apparently willing to 
obey, was found to be not willing. He was self-deceived ; 
he did not understand himself. 



134 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

6. But he came to the right teacher. He might have gone 
to the Pharisees (probably he had gone to them) or to the 
Sadducees, or to other leaders of thought, and teachers, among 
the Jews, and they would have told him that he was already 
in the way of eternal life, that he need not give himself any 
trouble about the matter ; as he was a true son of Abraham, 
he was already a member of the church, he could keep the 
law outwardly as he had done, and that he could live on as 
other men were living, keeping clear of outward and gross 
sins, enjoying his riches, living a life of pleasure, eating, 
drinking, making merry ; and then — so the Pharisees would 
have said — he would die, and the angels would carry him to 
Abraham's bosom. Ah, he knew all this, he had heard it 
before, he did not believe it ; his yearning, anxious soul could 
not be fed on such chaff. Miserable teachers are ye all, he 
might have said ; I do not want your help. You need not 
tell me about your creeds, your washings, your ceremonies. 
These are only outward. I want something to touch and 
affect my heart. And so he went to Jesus, and he made no 
mistake in this ; he went to the right teacher. 

7. He came on the right errand, and on the great errand. 
He did not ask how he could be made learned and great, 
how he could increase his possessions, which were already 
great. He did not ask how those great miracles were per- 
formed which he had seen or of which he had heard. He 
did not ask for a high place in the new kingdom which some 
thought our Lord had come to set up. A foolish mother 
once asked this for her two sons ; but this young man came 
on a far different errand : he came seeking salvation of him 
who came as a Saviour. 

8. He felt that everything depended on himself. And this, 
perhaps, was the most hopeful, the most encouraging, of all 



THE YOUNG RULER. 135 

these circumstances. He might have sent a messenger; 
others did so who wanted help from Jesus. He might have 
stated his case to one of his disciples, and asked his good 
offices in obtaining the instruction he needed. But this 
young man, feeling that everything depended upon himself, 
that Jesus, and he only, could tell him what to do, that this 
was the time for him to act, that it might be now or never 
for him, runs to our Lord ; he falls on his knees before him ; 
he looks up into his face ; he breaks out in the piteous cry, 
" Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal 
life?" 

Now you would say that under all these favorable con- 
ditions the young man would surely find what he sought ; 
that he was ready to do whatever he was told ; that as soon 
as the way to eternal life was made plain to him he would 
set out and walk in it, and that all he needed was proper 
instruction. 

What was the result ? After hearing our Lord recite the 
commandments — those which relate to men's duty to each 
other — he replied very promptly and with much confidence, 
" All these . . have I kept from my youth up : what lack 
I yet?" Then came the test: " Yet lackest thou one thing : 
sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me." 

How did he receive this answer ? Did he say, Yea, Lord, 
I will obey thy word ; I will do the thing thou requirest, 
which I have asked thee to tell me ; I will give up every- 
thing for thee. My great possessions, myself, I give to thee. 
Do with me, with my property, what thou wilt ; only let me 
be thy follower, thy disciple? Alas, no; nothing of the 
kind. He made no answer at all — not a word ; but his 
eyes, that had been lifted up in such eagerness, dropped. 



136 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

The test was too severe; the terms of salvation were too 
costly. He rose from his knees, he was sad, he turned 
away ; he turned his back on his Lord, and he is no more 
heard of; he drops out of history. Whether he ever recon- 
sidered his decision we do not know. I would hope, how- 
ever, that one who was so amiable, so good outwardly, who 
was so well instructed, and whom Jesus loved, did, at some 
time or other, turn again to his Lord with a true conversion. 

But see what he might have been. If he had followed 
the advice he asked, if he had obeyed his Lord, if he had 
given himself to the service of Christ then and there, what a 
different history it might have been ! He would surely have 
been a disciple. He might have been near to our Lord during 
the rest of his life on earth, and heard all his conversations 
and his discourses. He might even have been an apostle, 
and after the crucifixion of the Lord have been sent out as 
Peter and Paul and others were to preach the gospel to Jews 
and Gentiles. Then there would have been no doubt what- 
ever as to the question, what effect the words of Christ had 
upon him on that memorable day when he kneeled before him. 

V/hat effect shall these words have upon you ? I do not 
suppose (1 wish I could) that there are many of you who are 
asking the question in your hearts, " What shall I do, that I 
may have eternal life ?" 

It is true that you are in the presence of Christ. He is 
looking down into your hearts ; he sees every thought there. 
Ah, how ashamed we should be if we could see the thoughts 
in each others' hearts ! How we should shudder if our 
thoughts should suddenly appear written on the walls so 
that all could read them ! But he sees them all, he knows 
them all ; and is it not a wonder that he does not punish us 
for our evil thoughts ? Would not you, reader, like to ask 



THE YOUNG RULER. 137 

the question " What shall I do to be saved ?" Are you not 
thoughtful enough to ask it? I believe that you would like 
to know, if you could, without asking it ; because at some 
time you must know, or you cannot be saved. Why not ask 
it now? Do you think there is time enough, — that you are 
young, and that there will be other times, and many times, 
when you can as well ask it as now T ? and so you say, What 
is the use of being in a hurry ? 

One Sunday afternoon a boy whom I knew went to the 
hospital with a pain in his head. At half-past six o'clock 
the next morning he was dead. Had he plenty of time? 

One evening a young man, the son of a man whom I well 
knew, about twenty-one years old, went to his bed not spec- 
ially unwell ; and when his father went to awaken him the 
next morning, he was dead. Had he plenty of time ? 

I tell you there is not plenty of time. You do not know 
when your last opportunity may come. It may be to some 
reader now 7 . God grant that you may have other opportun- 
ities ! but you do not know that you will ; no one knows it. 
Some will have undoubtedly, but no one can say for himself 
that he will. If there is anything in your life that will justify 
you for being in haste, it is this. You cannot afford to put 
it off. 

The young man who came to Christ had his question an- 
swered ; and so you may have yours answered if you will 
only ask it, even in your hearts. 

You may not be required to give up great possessions, even 
if you have them. You are not asked to come out from your 
companions, your schoolmates, and follow a teacher who goes 
up and down the land from city to city, and who has no home. 
You are only asked to do one thing — believe in Christ. Now 
does this seem very hard ? But you must believe in him with 



138 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

all your heart, not with half a heart as the rich young man 
did ; and, believing in him with all your heart, you will give 
up your sins, and he will forgive them and blot them all out. 

What will happen if you do not believe ? Why, of some 
of you something like this may be said in the future : — They 
went to good schools; they were well instructed in useful 
things ; they were kindly treated ; but when they left school 
they cared for none of these things ; they fell into bad com- 
pany, they went to drinking-saloons and worse places, they 
went from bad to worse ; some found their way to the alms- 
house, some to prison, and some stumbled over the dark 
mountains and were lost. 

Then see what you will become if you believe. You will 
be in the highest and best sense a child of God. All your 
life in this world will be guarded and helped by him. All 
things that are best for you will be given to you. You will 
be made honorable and useful. You will be helping in many 
ways to carry on the work of God among your companions. 
Many of you — most of you — will become heads of families. 
You will have bright and happy homes of your own. You 
will be respected by all good people. You will be kind and 
gentle, thoughtful and happy; and though you will have 
many trials and sorrows, you will know that they are per- 
mitted by your heavenly Father for your good and for the 
good of others. 

You may be chosen as his messenger, in ways which he 
will appoint, to teach ignorant people his great salvation. In 
all your life the great, the infinite God will be your Friend, 
your Father ; and then after this life you will be taken to 
heaven to be " forever with the Lord." Is not this worth 
living for? And you can have it — all of you, every one 
of you — by simply accepting it, by believing in Christ. 



She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair 
Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch ; 

And he wiped off the soiling of despair 

From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. 

I am a sinner full of doubts and fears : 

Make me a hamble thing of lov3 and tears. 

— Hartley Coleridge. 



I charge thee live ! — repent and pray, 

In dust thine infamy deplore ; 
There yet is mercy — go thy way, 

And sin no more. — James Montgomery. 



Thou the sinful woman savedst, 
Thou the dying thief forgavest ; 
And to me a hope vouchsafest ! 

— Thomas de Celano. 
Trans. Wm. J. Irons. 



140 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 

In the Gospel according to Luke (chapter 7) is one of 
the most tender and touching and beautiful of all the nar- 
ratives of the Holy Scriptures. When the great Gregory, 
one of the Fathers of the church, was asked to preach on it, 
he said, " I had rather weep over it than preach on it." I 
cannot preach on it ; but I want to explain and dwell upon 
some of the points of the story, and try to interest you in it 
so that you may study it for yourselves ; and possibly you 
may weep over it. 

The scene is in a dwelling-house somewhere in the land of 
Judaea. It is probably the house of a rich man, able to give 
entertainment to a number of guests. No doubt everything 
proper to have on such occasions was provided in abundance. 

All that we know of the master of the house is that he 
was a Pharisee, and that his name was Simon ; but this does 
not give us much information, for Simon was a very common 
name among the people, and the Pharisees were one of the 
two most numerous of the sects among the Jews. We know, 
indeed, that the Pharisees were a proud, haughty and hyp- 
ocritical people as a class, and that they looked with con- 
tempt and scorn on Jesus and the new religion, and we won- 
der why such a man should have invited our Lord to his 
house. It may have been curiosity to see a little more closely 
and hear more particularly the new prophet who was exciting 
so much interest among the people ; it may have been to try 
to entangle him in his talk, as the Pharisees vainly tried to 
do on other occasions. 

141 



142 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Simon had invited other guests to meet Jesus at this dinner 
party or supper party ; we do not know how many, nor do 
we know their names. They were probably people of dis- 
tinction; and as the custom was in those days, they were 
probably met at the door with servants bearing water to wash 
their dusty feet, with the kiss of welcome from the master, 
and with perfume for the hair. 

The table was set, not as we set tables, surrounded with 
chairs, but with something like lounges or settees on which 
the guests reclined, usually on the left arm. The dishes were 
handed by servants ; and instead of knives and forks to eat 
with, as we have, the guests helped themselves by taking 
from the dishes with the right hand such things as they 
needed. 

We may suppose the guests were all in their proper places 
at the table, our Lord being probably not far from the master 
of the house, and everything going on as usual on such occa- 
sions, when there came in quietly an uninvited guest. It 
was a woman, and such a woman as Simon would hardly 
have invited. She was not a lady, not one in high position, 
probably not well dressed, and very likely not known to any 
one at that table. But there was something in her dress or 
manner or her general appearance which betrayed her char- 
acter ; and when that was known, almost every person in that 
room would have shrunk from her. 

What had she come for? To dine? No; she was not 
invited with that company. Had she come to pay her re- 
spects to Simon? The proud Pharisee would not have 
allowed her to speak to him even in the street. How had 
she managed to pass the servants and get into the house? 
We do not know. Possibly she glided in humbly and 
escaped their notice. Had she come to see Jesus? Yes. 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 143 

And what for ? Could she hope to have conversation with 
him there ? Did she think she could interrupt the company 
and break in upon them, and hear the gracious words that 
might fall from the lips of Christ? Did she hope that she 
might be permitted to sit at his feet, as Mary did at Beth- 
any, and listen to the divine Teacher ? Was it mere curios- 
ity to see a distinguished prophet? Did she come in to 
ask a favor for herself or for some friend, as his disciples 
often did? Did she come in to wash his feet? No; else 
she would have brought water and a towel. What did she 
come for ? It may be that she said within her heart, as an- 
other woman did, If I may but touch his clothes, I shall be 
healed. She brought with her an alabaster flask of ointment 
to anoint his feet. Another woman, on another occasion, 
came with ointment of spikenard and poured it upon his 
head as he sat at meat ; but this woman came to anoint his 
feet. 

She crept up quietly, gently, as we may suppose, to that 
side of the couch or lounge where his feet were exposed as 
he reclined at the feast ; and seeing that those feet had not 
been washed from the dust of travel, as was the custom — that 
the master of the house had failed in this simple act of court- 
esy and hospitality to his humble guest, not deeming Jesus 
worthy of this slight attention — the woman, seeing the soiled 
condition of those gracious feet, wept over them her woman's 
tears; and then, remembering her own life of sorrow and 
shame, her stained and polluted character, and her nearness 
to him who could heal the soul as well as the body, she 
poured out her tears in streams upon his neglected and 
travel-worn feet. 

It was not the ordinary shedding of tears, whether of sor- 
row or of joy ; it was not the ordinary overflow of the fount- 



144 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

ains of grief or.sympathy ; but there was something that so 
overwhelmed her, so bowed and crushed her to the earth, in 
the presence of the Saviour, that she bent over his blessed 
feet, clasping them with her hands, kissing them much with 
her lips, pouring out floods of tears upon them, bathing them, 
and using her unbound and flowing hair to dry them. It is a 
picture which the world had never seen before — which the 
world has never seen since. " Her eyes, which once longed 
after earthly joys, now shed forth penitential tears ; her hair, 
which she once displayed for idle ornament, is now used to 
wipe the feet of Christ ; her lips, which once uttered vain 
things, now kiss those holy feet ; the costly ointment with 
which she once anointed her own person is now offered to 
anoint the feet of Jesus." 

I wish it were in my power to describe this scene so viv- 
idly that you could see it as if it were enacted before your 
eyes. The old master and the artists of our own time have 
done all that human genius can conceive to illustrate this 
most wonderful scene ; but nothing except a profound and 
personal interest can enable any one to appreciate it even in 
part. Two things we may understand as being certainly in 
the mind of this woman : (1) a deep and overwhelming sense 
of her own sinfulness ; and (2) a full assurance in the ability 
and willingness of Christ to save her. 

What was there in her life which could properly fill her 
with such excessive grief? Ah ! the answer is in one word : 
she had been a sinner ; and the word in this connection means 
more than it does generally. She had fallen into the most 
degrading of all sins — the sin of impurity, unchastity. It is 
the sin which more than all others hardens the heart, stifles 
the conscience, deadens the emotions, chills the sensibilities, 
and drives the natural blush of modesty from the cheek. 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 145 

Other sins may be practiced and concealed successfully for a 
long time ; but this sin leaves its mark in the eye, on the 
cheek, on the whole life, and it is next to impossible long to 
hide it. 

Such a life of sin and shame this woman had led in that 
city. Who can tell how low she had fallen ? Who can tell 
how many she had dragged down with her into that dreadful 
abyss of wretchedness and misery? Was there no one to 
warn her ? Was there no one to pity her and stretch out the 
hand to rescue her? Oh, is it possible that in that city there 
was not one to say a kind word to dissuade the poor girl 
from so ruinous and deplorable a fate ? Had she no mother ? 
Had she never been taught to pray ? Had she never heard 
of the mercy of God the infinite Father? It is easy enough 
to ask such questions, and they come naturally to our lips 
when we read this sad story ; but we cannot answer them, 
and we shall never know anything more of the history 
of this poor unfortunate and sinful one until we meet her, 
if we ever shall meet her, in her home in heaven. For 
whether we reach heaven or not, we are sure she is there. 
We know that her life had been a lost and abandoned life, 
and that she had been known wherever she went as a sinner. 
What had led her to reflection ? What had come over her 
to induce her to change her course ? Something had touched 
her heart and convinced her that her life was wasted and 
blasted, that she was the object of scorn and contempt, that 
men pointed the finger at her as she passed along the streets, 
and the good, the pure, turned away with loathing. Some- 
thing, I say, had opened her eyes to her sad condition — had 
shown her what a wicked and bitter life she had been lead- 
ing, separated from all the good and the true and keeping 
company with the wicked, the profane, the lost — and she 
10 



146 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

determined to seek a better life. She had heard of Jesus, 
of his sympathy with the poor, the weak, the sinful. It is 
quite possible that she may have been within the sound of 
his voice when he said those sweet and tender words, " Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." And so, heavy laden with the burden of 
her sins, weary with the sad and wretched life she had been 
leading, sick at heart at the sad prospect of a future without 
light or hope, she came to the great Healer and bowed over 
his feet, kissing them again and again and bathing them with 
her tears of shame and sorrow. 

And then she must have had a full assurance of the ability 
and willingness of Christ to save her. How she came to 
have this assurance we do not know. Certainly the Holy 
Spirit had touched her heart and led her to believe this fully 
and cordially — for no such change can come to the heart 
without his gracious help — but what the means were by 
which she was moved, we do not know. Had she met with 
others who had been saved by the grace of Christ? Had 
she seen any of his wonderful miracles, his healing the sick, 
his unstopping the ears of the deaf, his opening the eyes of 
the blind, his raising the dead to life again ? All that we 
know is that she fully believed that Christ was able to save 
her, and that he was willing to save her, and that she desired 
to be saved. This was her faith, and this led Jesus to say to 
her, " Thy faith hath saved thee : go in peace." 

We never hear of her afterwards. Whether she lived long 
after this, or whether her life was shortened in consequence 
of her sins, we do not know, for the Scriptures are silent. I 
do not doubt for a moment, however, that if she lived for 
many years her life was true and upright and religious, that 
she never relapsed into her old ways, and that for eighteen 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 147 

hundred years, as we count time, she has been a saint in 
heaven, having her robes washed white in the blood of the 
Lamb, and singing his praises, and seeing him face to face. 

All of us are sinners in the sight of God, though not in 
the sense in which this woman was a sinner. We have all 
in some way or other, and some of us in many ways, broken 
the laws of God, and we deserve to be punished. We have 
not all sinned in the same degree, for some of us have sinned 
against more light than others. Some of us have been in 
Christian families, and have had mothers and fathers who have 
prayed for us and have taught us to pray. Others have been 
Sunday-school scholars, and have been reading and studying 
the Bible under highly-favorable circumstances ; while there 
are some among us who have been brought up in families 
surrounded by ignorance and vice, and who have been famil- 
iar with bad associates and bad words and bad deeds from 
our infancy. You can see then that there is a difference in 
our degrees of guilt. Some of us may have hardly ever 
heard of Jesus Christ and his salvation, while others have 
known all this from our earliest years. 

But we are all sinners and we all need a Saviour ; and we 
can all find the Saviour if we seek him. You need not look 
for him in the houses of the rich only. He is oftener to be 
found in the houses of the poor. He does not pass a^ong 
our streets, as he did in the streets of Jerusalem and other 
cities, with throngs of people following him. You need not 
seek him at night and secretly, as Xicodemus did for fear of 
the Jews. There is no one to be afraid of, and you need not 
be ashamed to go to him. If you should hear that he was 
being entertained in the house of a proud and rich man, you 
may be assured that he can and will come to your house just 
as well. He is everywhere, at all times; but you will not 



148 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

see him, and you cannot know that he is present unless you 
are seeking him. You need not be afraid that he will repulse 
you; he never did repulse any. Some of his disciples, in 
their ignorance and folly, will repulse you and drive you 
from his presence if they can : they did so in those early 
days, and will do so now sometimes : but he never turned 
any away, he never spoke harshly to any poor trembling one. 
Now if any of you feel that you have been doing very 
wicked things, if you have had thoughts which you dared 
not speak out, if you have spoken words which you would 
not have your best friends hear, if you have done things 
which now make you sad to think of, or if it sometimes 
seems to you that some people will not forget nor forgive 
you, and you fear that it will be hard work for you to live 
in the world and do right, — if it seems that all these things 
are against you, do not despair, oh, do not give up, but 
remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is your friend, that he 
will never forget you, that he will forgive you as heartily as 
he did this poor woman, that he is always near you though 
you do not see him. All you have to do is to call upon him, 
to weep over your sins ; and though you may not be able to 
kiss his blessed feet and pour out your tears upon them, he 
will accept the will for the deed, he will accept your tears, 
he will hear you cry, he will reach out his hand, he will lift 
you out of your despair and fill your hearts with peace and 

joy- 
In MacDonald's story of " Eobert Falconer" is the fol- 
lowing : t 

" In a very narrow, dirty street in one of the lowest parts 
of the city we turned in at a door and climbed a creaking 
stair to the very top of the house. Here we found a wretched 
room, which we entered softly. Two or three women sat by 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 149 

the side of the chimney ; and another one sat by a low bed 
covered with a torn patchwork counterpane, spelling out a 
chapter in the Bible. We paused a moment to hear what 
she was reading. Had the book been opened by chance or 
design ? It was the story of David and Bathsheba. Moans 
came from the bed, but the candle in a bottle by which the 
woman was reading was so placed that we could not see the 
sufferer. We stood still and did not interrupt the reading. 
Presently a coarse voice said from the side of the chimney, 
1 The saint, you see, was no better than some of the rest of us/ 

"'I think he was a good deal worse just then/ said Fal- 
coner, stepping forward. 

" i Gracious ! there's Mr. Falconer/ said another woman, 
rising and speaking in a fluttering tone. 

" i Give me the book/ he said, turning toward the bed. 
' I'll read you something better than that. I'll read about 
some one that never did anything wrong.' 

" ' I don't believe there ever was no such man/ said the 
previous reader as she handed him the book. 

"'Not Jesus Christ himself?' said Falconer. 

" ' Oh, I didn't know as you meant him.' 

" i Of course I meant him. There never was another.' 

" l I've heard tell, — p'r'aps it was yourself, sir, — as he 
didn't come clown on us overhard after all, bless him.' 

" Falconer sat down on the side of the bed and read the 
storv of the woman that was a sinner. When he ceased, the 
silence was broken by a sob from somewhere in the room. 
The sick woman stopped her moaning and said, l Turn down 
the leaf there, please, sir. Lillywhite will read it to me when 
you are gone.' 

"The 'some one' sobbed again. It was a voung, slender 



150 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

girl, with a face disfigured with small-pox, and, but for the 
tearful look it wore, poor and expressionless. Falconer said 
something gentle to her. 

" * Will he ever come again ?' she sobbed, 

" ' Who f said Falconer. 

" l Him — Jesus Christ. I've heard tell, I think, that he 
was to come again some day/ 

"'Why do you ask?' 

" i Because/ she said with a fresh burst of tears that ren- 
dered the words that followed unintelligible. But she recov- 
ered herself in a few moments, and, as if finishing her sen- 
tence, put her hand up to her poor, thin, colorless hair, and 
said, i My hair ain't long enough to wipe his feet.' 

" i Do you know what he would say to you, my girl ?' he 
asked. 

" ' No ; what would he say to me ? He would speak to 
me, would he ?' 

" i He would say, " Thy sins be forgiven thee." ' 

" ' Would he though ? would he ?' she cried, starting up. 
' Take me to him. Oh, I forgot; he's dead. But he will 
come again, won't he? Would they crucify him again, sir?' 

" c No, they would not crucify him now. They would only 
laugh at him, and shake their heads at what he told them, as 
much as to say it was not true, and sneer and mock at hirn 
in some of the newspapers.' 

" i Oh dear ! I've been very wicked.' 

u i But you won't be so any more.' 

" i No, no, no ; I won't, I won't, I won't.' 

"She talked hurriedly, almost wildly. The coarse old 
woman tapped her forehead with her finger. Falconer took 
the girl's hand. i What is your name?' he said. 

" < Nell.' 



THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. 



151 



"< What more V 

" i Nothing more.' 

" ' Well, Nelly/ said Falconer— 

" l How kind of you to call me Nelly !' interrupted the 
poor girl. ( They always calls me Nell just.' 

Ui Nelly/ repeated Falconer, 'I will send a lady here 
to-morrow to take you away with her if you like, and tell 
you what you must do to find Jesus. People always find him 
that want to find him/ " 

I have nothing more to say. If such a story of the mercy 
of Christ as I have given you from his gospel does not, un- 
der the power of the Holy Spirit, soften and melt your hearts 
and my heart, I do not see what can. But do not let us 
doubt it. We are sinners and he is the Saviour, the same 
Saviour. Let us go to him, believe in him, and weep over 
his gracious words. 




O Saviour Christ, thou too art man ; 

Thou hast been troubled, tempted, tried ; 
Thy kind but searching glance can scan 

The very wounds that shame would hide. 
Thy touch has still its ancient power ; 

No word from thee can fruitless fall : 
Hear in this solemn evening hour, 

And in thy mercy heal us all. — H. Twells. 



Jesus Christ, I am very blind ; 
Nothing comes through into my mind : 

? Tis well I am not dumb. 
Although I see thee not, nor hear, 

1 cry because thou mayst be near : 

O Son of Mary, come ! — George MacDonald. 



A thousand years have fleeted ; 

And, Saviour, still we see 
Thy deed of love repeated 

On all who come to thee. 
As he who sat benighted, 

Afflicted, poor and blind, 
So now (thy word is plighted) 

Joy, light and peace I find. 

—Frederic de la Motte FouQufe 



152 




= 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE BLIND BEGGAE. 

• 

Our Lord was on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. 
He had crossed the Jordan above Jericho,- perhaps near the 
same place where Joshua crossed with the hosts of Israel 
when they came in to conquer the land. When he was near 
the town the throng grew larger and the crowd pressed upon 
him more closely. In the three years of his public ministry 
his fame had become widely spread, and hundreds and thou- 
sands of people had heard of his miracles and of his many 
good deeds. 

At the side of the rough road just before you reach the 
town, coming up from the Jordan valley, sat a blind beggar, 
a most pitiable object, and a very common object in the East. 
He had gone there, or had been placed there, in that public 
place by his friends, in the hope that the people from the 
country and the people from the city, as they went to and fro, 
might have compassion on the poor creature and drop some- 
thing into his outstretched hand. Sitting there in the bright 
sunshine, but alas all in darkness, his hearing more acute 
because of his blindness, he heard the sound of an approach- 
ing multitude. Xearer and nearer it came, and he knew by 
the sound of tramping feet and the hurrying and shouting 
crowd that a great company was approaching. But the beg- 
gar could not see. You know with what eagerness you run 
to the door, or to the corner • of the street, to see an excited 
crowd pass by. On came that rushing throng, and the blind 
man, ignorant and helpless, and dependent entirely upon 
others, asked what it meant. And they told him that 

153 



154 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

" Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." Oh, what news ! Jesus 
the Son of God, the healer of the sick, the great Physician, 
he who opens the eyes of the blind, — Jesus is passing by. 
And, believing it was an opportunity not to be lost, that he 
may never be within reach of Jesus again, that if ever cured 
it must be now, he breaks out in that piercing, piteous cry, ' 
loud enough to be heard over the roar of the surging multi- 
tude, " Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me." 

There were those who rebuked the blind man. They did 
not like the interruption ; they did not want a great proces- 
sion stopped by the cry of a beggar ; they had no sympathy 
with a blind man, for none of them were blind ; and like the 
disciples who rebuked those who brought their little children 
to Jesus, like the Pharisees who rebuked those who shouted 
hosannas to the Son of David when he rode into Jerusalem, 
these people rebuked the blind man and wanted him to hold 
his peace. 

Was he silenced by the harsh rebuke? Did he shrink 
back again to his seat by the roadside, hurt by the severe 
words which came from many lips, and afraid that he should 
be crushed under foot by the multitude ? No ; he was too 
much in earnest for this. He was not asking for money now. 
It was not a question of bread — whether he should starve or 
not; it was something far more important, it was a question 
of sight to one who was born blind, and he was not to be hin- 
dered, he was not to be discouraged ; it was now or never with 
him, and the more they charged him to hold his peace, so 
much the more a great deal he cried out, " Thou son of 
David, have mercy on me !" 

Do you think it strange that Jesus heard him? Do you 
think it strange that Jesus should notice him? It would 
have been strange if Jesus had not heard that cry. It would 



THE BLIND BEGGAR. 155 

have been strange if he had not noticed the blind man, for 
he never turned away from the cry of any one in distress. 

So in the midst of that great throng he pauses, he stands 
still. How the people must have wondered ! What will he 
do ? What notice will he take of the interruption ? 

While the multitude are looking and wondering, Jesus 
commands the beggar to be brought to him. And when the 
people see this they speak cheeringly to the beggar, saying, 
" Be of good comfort, rise ; he calleth thee." And he threw 
off his outer garment and rose and came hurriedly to Jesus. 
And when he was come near Jesus said, " What w T ilt thou 
that 1 shall do unto thee ?" And he said, " Lord, that I may 
receive my sight." And Jesus said, "Receive thy sight; thy 
faith hath made thee whole." And immediately he received 
his sight, and followed Jesus glorifying God. 

Where was the faith f What did this beggar know about 
Jesus ? Do you think he knew as much about him as you 
do ? By no means. He may have heard of a great prophet 
who had come into the world, who had done wonderful 
works of healing, but he had never seen him, he had never 
seen any one who had been healed by him. How could he 
have faith in one whom he had never seen, and whose voice 
he had never heard ? Somehow, we do not know how, this 
blind beggar had heard of Jesus ; he believed in some way, 
we hardly know how, that he was not only able but willing 
to save those who called upon him, and he resolved that 
nothing should stand between him and this opportunity to 
have his eyes opened, and he pushed aside those w T ho would 
have hindered him, and came into the immediate presence 
of Christ and told his pitiful story. 

He must have believed that Jesus would have compassion 
on him. He must have believed that his poor, pitiful, help- 



156 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

less condition would touch the sympathies of the compassion- 
ate Saviour. However other people might treat him, or 
whatever they might think of him, whether they would com- 
mend him or laugh at him, he determined to go and throw 
himself on the mercy of Christ. And he did, and you know 
he was cured of his blindness. 

Has this story any lesson for us ? What have we to do 
with it, except to hear or read it as one of the wonderful 
works of Jesus when on earth ? What personal interest have 
we in it? .Jesus is no longer in the world. He ascended 
into heaven forty days after his resurrection. He does not 
pass up and down our streets, we cannot call out to him, he 
would not hear us if we did, and we are not blind, and are 
not in need of healing. 

Are you quite sure that Jesus never passes by you ? Do 
you never feel that you would like to be a better boy, a bet- 
ter girl, than you have been ? Do you never feel that you 
would like to stop all wrong-doing and begin to do right ? 
Do you never feel, as you read or hear the Scriptures, that 
there are better things in store for you than you have ever 
had yet? Do you not sometimes feel, when you cannot 
sleep at night, a something that tells you that your life is not 
what it ought to be in the sight of God ? Do you never 
think when you are brought near to a death-bed, or to the 
grave of a relative or friend, that God may be speaking to 
you, and that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by ? 

The incident at the gate of Jericho will never occur again. 
There are many blind men now, if not in Jericho, in other 
cities. They would all be glad to hear the voice of Jesus if 
they believed that he would restore their eyesight. They 
would go to any place, however distant, if they thought he 
would pass that way. There is no sacrifice too great to make 



THE BLIND BEGGAR. 157 

if they could only win his favor. The clay of nliracles, we 
believe, is past; but Jesus of Nazareth still lives, and 
though we cannot hear his voice, we know that he hears our 
cry for mercy as plainly as he heard the cry of the blind 
beggar-. 

He comes near to you, reader, in many ways, though you 
neither see him nor hear him, and very often you care not for 
him. In fact, to some of you I suppose his presence would 
be positively unwelcome. He is not likely to force himself 
upon you. He looks to see if you are willing to receive 
him. 

I want you to believe that Jesus the Saviour is near to you 
now, that in fact he is near enough to hear you call for help 
if you cry out. Now call upon him. If you feel that you 
are a sinner, that very feeling is a reason why he should hear 
you. It is your plea for mercy. He has saved others. He 
has power to save you. He never refused an earnest and 
persevering suppliant for his mercy. Do not depend upon 
any good things you have done, or any good works you may 
yet do, for your salvation. You can be saved only through 
Christ. Go to him, tell him of your blindness, tell him of 
your guilt, tell him how hard it is to feel that you are a 
sinner. 

If temptations assail you and charge you to hold your 
peace, then cry out the more a great deal, " Jesus, thou son 
of David, have mercy on me." Be importunate, be perse- 
vering, beg for mercy alone. Cast yourself in your helpless- 
ness and guilt at your Saviour's feet, and say in the language 
of the hymn, " And if I perish I will pray, and perish only 
there." But then you shall not perish. Make the case of 
the blind beggar your own, and then you can adopt the fine 
old hymn of John Newton as your own, viz. : 



158 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

"Mercy, O thou Son of David," 
Thus blind Bartimseus prayed ; 
" Others by thy word are saved, 
Now to me afford thine aid." 

Many for his crying chid him, 

But he called the louder still ; 
Till the gracious Saviour bid him 

" Come and ask me what you will." 

Money was not what he wanted, 

Though by begging used to live ; 
But he asked, and Jesus granted, 

Alms which none but he could give. 

" Lord, remove this grievous blindness, 

Let my eyes behold the day ;" 
Straight he saw, and, won by kindness, 

Followed Jesus in the way. 

Oh, methinks I hear him praising, 

Publishing to all around, 
" Friends, is not my case amazing ? 

What a Saviour I have found ! 

" Oh that all the blind but knew him, 

And would be advised by me ! 
Surely they would hasten to him, 

He would cause them all to see." 

Young reader, this lesson is to you. I believe I am moved 
by my Master and yours to write these plain things, in the 
hope that you may be persuaded to believe in him and give 
him your heart and begin a new life. I believe he is near 
you now, that he hears every word you speak, that he knows 
every unspoken thought that has been in your minds. It 
may be that you have already heard his tender call, and have 
accepted his offered grace ; blessed be his name if this is so ! 
But if you have not come to him, if you are not yet ready to 
come, if you are waiting for a more convenient season, if you 



THE BLIND BEGGAR. 



159 



are saying " not now/' " there will be other opportunities/' 
" it will be easier after awhile than it is now," I do not say, 
I dare not say, that you will never have another opportunity, 
but I do say, and I say it in all earnestness, that you cannot 
afford to put it off, for you do not know that you will ever 
again have an opportunity as favorable as this. Why not 
then come now? For I assure you that nothing but your 
own unwillingness stands between your soul and the salvation 
of Christ. Before you close this book you can, if you will, 
give yourself to him and his service. Will you do it ? 




Oh may I always ready stand 
With my lamp burning in my hand ; 
May I in sight of heaven rejoice, 
Whene'er I hear the Bridegroom's voice ! 

— Thomas Ken. 



Beware, my soul ; take thou good heed, lest thou in slumber lie, 
And, like the five, remain without, and knock, and vainly cry ; 
But watch, and bear thy lamp undimmed, and Christ shall gird thee on 
His own bright wedding-robe of light — the glory of thy Son. 

— G. Moultrie. 



And I pray to him who took me in, 
To him who forgave me all my sin, 
That those who wait in the dreary street, 
With trembling hands and weary feet, 

May also enter into rest, 
And dwell, like me, in his presence blest. — B. Miller. 



u Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not." — Pollok. 



160 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE TEN VIRGINS. 

This chapter is about a wedding and some young girls. 
The scene is in Judaea, and the story is told by our Lord 
himself. 

Weddings are always interesting, whether happy or other- 
wise. Almost the first thing we read in the newspapers is 
the list of the weddings. If a person should sit down to tell 
us of a marriage, there are certain things we should want to 
know about it ; such as the names of the bride and groom, 
the names of the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and how 
many guests were there. And then we should want to know 
where they were to live, and whether they were well off in this 
world's goods or poor ; whether the parents were willing, and 
whether they were likely to be happy. 

Of the wedding described in this parable we really 
know very little. We do not know the names of the 
persons mentioned. The bride is not mentioned at all by 
name. Indeed we know nothing at all about this young 
couple. The story is not told for any such purpose as the 
gratification of curiosity : it is told for another and higher 
purpose. We are taught through a beautiful story that it 
is our duty to be prepared for the end of our life in this 
world. 

There were ten virgins ; they all had lamps. These lamps 
were all burning at first, when they set out ; and they were 
all bright enough to secure them a place in a splendid mar- 
riage procession. 

As is often the case in similar circumstances, they had to 
11 161 



162 OLD STOEIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

wait. The bridegroom tarried ; the procession did not move 
as soon as was expected, and they all became weary and, 
doubtless, impatient. After waiting and waiting until far 
into the night, and much later than their usual time for rest, 
their eyes grew heavy. They struggled against the increas- 
ing drowsiness, as you have done when kept up longer than 
usual, until at last they all slumbered and slept. You must 
not blame them for this ; you must not think it strange ; for 
it was in the dead of night, they had been busy with their 
preparations, the reaction which follows excitement was upon 
them, and it was perfectly natural for them to fall asleep. 

Scholars say that there is a difference in the meaning of 
the words "slumbered" and "slept" which our English 
words hardly show. It is said that while " slumbered " 
means nodding, as one does in a chair (or sometimes in 
church), with the head going from side to side to keep awake, 
the word " slept" means heavy sleeping, as one sleeps in bed, 
with the limbs composed and at rest. I don't know whether 
the wise virgins simply nodded or slept heavily, or whether 
there was any difference between the two classes in this re- 
spect ; I only know that neither class is blamed in the narra- 
tive for sleeping, nor need we blame them. 

They seem to have slept a long time, at least they slept 
until midnight, when they were awakened by a shout which 
startled and roused them all, the heavy sleepers as well as 
the slumberers. That shout or cry was, " Behold, the bride- 
groom cometh ; go ye out to meet him." Then they all arose 
and seized their lamps ; some had burned low, the wicks 
were stiff and thick ; others were going out entirely. Some 
needed trimming, others needed filling. Whether they were 
all full of oil and well trimmed when they set out we do not 
know, but we know they were not in good condition now. 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 163 

It is probable that those who are called the wise had carried 
oil in other vessels to fill their lamps when necessary, not 
knowing how long they might be kept waiting. 

Be that as it may, we know that they whose lamps were 
going out asked the others, " Give us of your oil ; for our 
lamps are going out." A very natural request, you will say, 
and we almost wonder why such a request was not granted. 
But it w r as refused ; and the reason given is, " Peradventure 
there will not be enough for us and you : go ye rather to 
them that sell, and buy for yourselves." 

The virgins whose lamps were going out are called "foolish 
virgins," meaning careless, indifferent, dull, lazy. They were 
improvident ; they had not made preparation for what they 
were to do. Being disappointed in their appeal to the others 
(who told them to go to the storekeepers and buy oil), they 
set out on their errand. 

I wonder if they were in a hurry ? I wonder if they ran ? 
I do not think so. It is much more likely that they would 
say, u Oh, what's the use of hurry ! There's time enough ; 
he is not in sight yet; we don't hear any sound yet; we 
don't hear the music." 

Nevertheless, w r hile they were gone to buy the bridegroom 
came; and he did not wait for them, no, not a moment; but 
the procession swept on in all its brightness, with its music 
and blazing lights and gay followers, into the house; the 
wise virgins entered with their trimmed and flashing lamps 
in their hands. 

Then what ? The door was shut. There are few sadder 
words than these, " the door teas shut" They mean that the 
opportunity was past, the time Avas gone by, the last chance 
was lost ; it was too late. 

The foolish virgins came back, no doubt, with their lamps 



164 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

filled with oil and burning brightly; they came back and 
went up to the door. It was closed. No doubt they knocked 
long and loud. We know they called, we know the words 
, of their call, " Lord, Lord, open to us." They wanted the 
bridegroom to open the door and let them in. 

Amid all the festivities, the music and the dancing, he 
heard them, he answered them ; but did he grant their re- 
quest? Did he open the door? No. What did he say? 
" I know you not." What could he mean by this ? Surely 
he knew them. He meant this : iC You do not belong to the 
company ; you were not in the procession ; I do not know 
you." Was this all ? All that he said ; but, alas ! the fool- 
ish virgins were outside in the dark and in the cold ; while 
the wise virgins were inside, where the marriage festival was 
going on, and where everything was bright and joyous. 

The simple teaching of this parable, as I said at first, is 
that we must all be prepared for the coming of Christ. The 
bridegroom is the Son of man. The ten virgins with the 
lamps are those who are invited to the marriage feast, our- 
selves ; the time of waiting is our life here on the earth, our 
probation while we are on trial. The oil in the lamps repre- 
sents the grace of Christ or the love of Christ in the heart ; 
the great procession is the multitude of believers ; the house 
into which they enter is heaven ; and the outside is that 
region of outer darkness which is to be the place of the 
lost. 

There are certain respects in which these virgins were all 
alike. They were all virgins ; they were all invited to the 
wedding ; they were all waiting for the bridegroom ; they all 
heard the call to join in the procession ; they all might have 
gone into the supper and with rejoicing ; they all had lamps ; 
their lamps were all probably alike ; they all went to sleep 



THE TEN VIRGINS. 165 

(human nature at the best grows weary); they all arose at 
the midnight cry ; they were all startled and surprised. Thus 
far, you see, these virgins were all alike ; they agree outwardly; 
they have travelled the same road ; the spectators, the world, 
saw no difference between them. 

But now come the points in which they were not alike. 

The wise had taken oil in their vessels with their lamps ; 
the foolish it seems had not. At midnight the lamps of the 
wise were still burning ; we suppose so, at least, for they only 
wanted trimming; but as to the foolish, their lamps w T ere 
going out. The wise were prepared to meet the bridegroom ; 
but the others, the foolish, alas! were not; and midnight 
w-as no time to buy oil. The wise could not supply them ; 
the wise virgins went into the feast through the open door ; 
but when the others came the door was shut. 

The first lesson that may be learned from this parable is 
that we must watch. The foolish virgins were not blamed, 
and they suffered, not because they slept, but because, when 
awakened, they had no oil, they were not prepared ; and the 
whole object of watching is preparation. They were sur- 
prised, and it was too late then to make the preparation that 
was needed. 

The use that we ought to make of this lesson is to watch 
over our lives. We should watch over our hearts that we 
indulge no improper thoughts ; we should set a watch over 
our lips that we speak no improper words ; we should w r atch 
our conduct that we do nothing to hurt or grieve any person 
whatever. We ought to know that if we do not watch, if 
we do not prepare, we shall be surprised. 

The bridegroom will certainly come. Other things may 
be uncertain ; no one can say absolutely what your condition 
or mine is to be in the future life ; but it is certain that the 



166 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



bridegroom will come. There is to be a midnight cry: we 
shall all hear it. 

There is such a thing as a lamp without oil. The foolish 
virgins had lamps, but they were empty ; and an empty lamp 
with no oil at hand is utterly useless. 

There is to be disappointment. God forbid that any of 
us should be disappointed ! If there are those in the world, 
young or old, who disregard all these warnings, who turn a 
deaf ear to these teachings, who close their eyes against the 
light and truth which illuminate the word of God and flash 
through his providences, — if there must be such, so self- 
willed, so unteachable, God forbid that it should be any 
of us! 




Women of Bethlehem. 



Everything fits in at last, my friends ! No cravings are given in vain. 
There is always something in store to account for them, you may be quite 
sure. You may have to wait a bit, some of you a shorter, some a longer 
time ; but do wait, and everything will fit in and be perfect at last. — Mrs. 
Gatty. 



Think'st thou he hears not, when for many a day 
Thy knees are worn with fasting and with prayer? 

Think'st thou he turns from any love away, 
Because thou see'st no angel on the air ? 

Tempter, away ! each throb of pain he knows ; 
I will kneel on and wait his blessed time. 



All as God wills, who wisely heeds 

To give or to withhold, 
And knoweth more of all my needs 

Than all my prayers have told. — Whittier. 



168 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE WIDOW. 

This is a character from one of the parables of our Sav- 
iour. His purpose in speaking the parable is plain. It was 
not to teach his disciples to pray merely, for that duty had 
been fully set forth in the sermon on the mount. It was to 
teach the duty and necessity of perseverance in prayer, and 
to hold out encouragements to persevere. An old writer has 
said that " the key of this parable hangs at the door ;" it is 
the first thing seen. " He spake a parable unto them to this 
end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 

I want to show the meaning of the parable, or rather to ex- 
plain it so that we can see how it is to be applied to ourselves. 

I do not suppose that our Saviour meant to teach that 
people should be engaged all the time in prayer, alone or in 
places of public or social prayer. He could not have meant 
that his people should be on their knees continually, asking 
his blessing on themselves or others. This would be impos- 
sible. We live in a world of labor and toil, where we must 
be at work or in business of some kind to support ourselves 
or those who may be dependent upon us ; and God has com- 
manded us to be "not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; 
serving the Lord" (Rom. 12 : 11). If we take it literally, 
therefore, to pray always, we shall find contradictory direc- 
tions in the Bible itself. I suppose that the Saviour meant 
that people should always be in a praying mood ; and that in 
the midst of their daily work they might often be lifting up 
their hearts to God. And it is possible to be in such a frame 
of mind. 

109 



170 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

There was a company of ministers once who met statedly 
for conference and prayer and for the discussion of any sub- 
ject which might come before them. One day this question 
was proposed : " How can we pray without ceasing?"- Many 
and various things were said, until finally one of the number 
was appointed to write upon it and read his paper at the next 
monthly meeting. There was a plain girl, a housemaid, who 
heard this appointment ; and she exclaimed, " What ! a whole 
month wanted to answer that question ! It is one of the 
easiest and best texts in the Bible." " Well," said an old 
minister, " what can you say about it ? Let us hear how you 
understand it. Can you pray all the time?" " Oh yes, sir." 
" What ! when you have so many things to do ?" " Why, 
sir, the more I have to do the more I can pray." " Indeed ? 
Well, do let us know how it is, for most persons think other- 
wise." " Well," said the girl, " when I first open my eyes in 
the morning I pray, Lord, open the eyes of my understand- 
ing; and while I am dressing, I pray that I may be clothed 
with the robe of righteousness ; and when I have washed, I 
ask for tho washing of regeneration ; and as I begin work, I 
pray that I may have strength equal to my day ; and when 
I begin to kindle the fire, I pray that God's work may be 
revived in my soul ; and as I sweep out the house, I pray 
that my heart may be cleansed from all its impurities ; and 
while preparing and eating breakfast, I pray to be fed with 
the hidden manna, the bread that came down from heaven, 
and with the sincere milk of the word ; and as I am busy 
with the little children, I look up to God as my Father, and 
pray for the spirit of adoption that I may be his child ; and 
so on all day. Everything that I do furnishes me with a 
thought for a prayer." 

Here then is a disciple in the humblest walks of life, and 



THE WIDOW. 171 

working all the time, and a kind of work too which would 
seem to have no connection with sacred duties, lifting up her 
heart to God all through the day, and asking his blessing. 
Who can doubt that she was obeying the command, " Pray 
without ceasing " ? 

To faint in prayer is to grow weary or discouraged because 
our prayers are not answered immediately. But there is no 
promise in the Bible that God will immediately grant our 
prayers by giving the very things that we ask for. We are 
so ignorant of our true wants, or what is best for us to have, 
that we sometimes pray with much earnestness for things 
that it would not be best for us to have ; things which God, 
who knows all things, knows it would not be good to give 
us. A mother who sees her infant wasting under a fatal dis- 
ease may ask God with earnest cries for its recovery ; and as 
she sees the little body racked with pain she may implore, 
with all the fervor of a mother's deep affection, the mercy of 
God to spare its life ; and yet the little sufferer sinks until 
the last throb, the last struggle is over, and it is stiffened in 
death. God, who knows all things, knows that it would be 
better to remove that child from this world to heaven, and 
the mother is left to her bereavement. He does not always 
do exactly what we ask in our prayers ; but if we pray in 
faith he will always do what is best. 

The character of the judge in this parable is remarkable. 
He had no sense of accountability to God, and cared not for 
man. Sitting in the chair of justice, clothed with high power, 
placed over the people to settle their disputes and differences, 
bound to administer the law, he was the slave of his own 
misguided will. 

In the city where he lived there was a widow, one of a 
class whose peculiar condition ought to have excited his 



172 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

deepest sympathy. Deprived of her natural protector, and 
suffering from the oppression of a wicked enemy, she went 
to the judge for relief. " Avenge me of mine adversary," 
was her prayer. But the judge did not hear her, or rather 
he did not care for her. Day after day, and whenever she 
had the opportunity, she pressed her plea, but in vain. There 
was no response. Perhaps the poor suppliant was too humble 
to attract much attention, and too obscure to enlist any friends 
in her behalf. For some time the judge made no reply to her 
petition; but at length, when he became wearied with her 
ceaseless importunities, he resolved to grant her request. See 
the motive that led him to do right ! " Though I fear not 
God, nor regard man," said he; "yet because this widow 
troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming 
she weary me." What a confession ! He resolves to do her 
justice, not because she was oppressed and imposed upon, but 
to silence her and to avoid her importunity. 

"And," says the Saviour in applying the teaching of the 
parable, " shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day 
and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell 
you that he will avenge them speedily." 

Let us see now how many discouragements the widow met 
in her appeals to the judge. 

1. She went as a stranger. It is hardly likely that one so hum- 
ble as she was could have been acquainted with one so high 
as the judge, especially with one as proud as he was. There 
was no remembrance of former pleasant intercourse, no recol- 
lection of little acts of kindness, of favors given or received, 
to make approach to him free from embarrassment even ; but 
there was the chilling thought that she was going to a 
stranger, who would not be likely to take any interest in her 
distress. How different is our condition ! When we go to 



THE WIDOW. 173 

God in prayer, not only are we not strangers to him, but we 
are his own creatures, and, if we love him, his special friends. 
We are not strangers nor foreigners, but fellow citizens with 
the saints, and of the household of God. What a tender re- 
lation is this ! We are not only the friends of God, but we 
belong to his household. And if we are true disciples we 
have a right to come as children to our Father in heaven. 
If the unjust judge then attended to the petition of a stranger, 
shall not God attend to the prayers of those whom he loves 
and whom he has made his friends ? 

2. She was only one to make request She represented no 
party, and had no circle of powerful friends whose influence 
it would be desirable to secure. There was nothing at all in 
her circumstances to recommend her to the favor of an unjust 
judge, and her only plea was justice — "avenge me of mine 
adversary ;" save me from my oppressor. 

When a Christian prays he does not go alone in prayer. 
The very prayer which he is taught to offer implies in the 
first word that he does not go alone : " Our Father who art 
in heaven." The ear of the Lord is always open to the voice 
of prayer, and earnest, fervent prayer is always ascending to 
the throne of grace, — in the church, in the school-room, in 
the daily family worship, at our bedside as we kneel down 
night and morning. While we pray we may be sure that 
there are many others praying, and some of them praying 
with and praying for us. We know that others are bowing 
to the same God, our common Father. When we are alone 
and praying we know that God's eye is upon us, that we are 
a part of his great family, coming to him every night and 
morning, with the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise. Our 
prayers then never ascend alone ; they are always accompa- 
nied by the devout breathings of other hearts. 



174 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

3. Whenever the widow went to the judge he turned away ; 
he did not want to assist her. How different is God toward 
us ! He has commanded us to seek his face ; and will he 
hide his face from us ? He has taught us to look up to him 
as a Father; will he then mock us by turning away and 
forbidding us his presence? He has said that whosoever 
cometh in the name of Christ shall in no wise be cast out ; 
can we think that he will repulse us by turning away that 
face of blessedness and peace, and shut us out? Has any 
one ever really sought the favor of God and been denied ? 
Can any one say, " I sought the Lord sorrowing, with pen- 
itence and faith, and he was not found of me. I took my 
burden of sin to the Saviour to roll it off upon him, trusting 
in his mercy alone for forgiveness, and he refused to receive 
me. I went to him with a heart broken with trials and 
afflictions, and he gave me no relief. I felt that the world did 
not and could not satisfy the needs of my soul, and I sought 
that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, that 
peace which is not affected by earthly changes, but I was 
disappointed. His ear was deaf to my entreaties, his heart 
was not moved by my sorrows"? No one can say this; 
a sincere prayer was never offered that did not reach the 
throne of grace. Whatever may be our situation or circum- 
stances, God is always willing to hear our prayers. In the 
hour of sickness, when the frail body is afflicted with pain or 
debility, if the mind can be composed to pray, the prayer 
reaches him. When away from home, and among those who 
care little for the Being whom we worship, and when absent 
from the place of our daily secret prayers, God is as near to 
us as ever. In the time of adversity, when dark clouds hang 
heavy and low, and when the moral horizon gives no light to 
the distressed spirit, the place of prayer is open and God waits 



THE WIDOW. 175 

to hear. When distressing afflictions come and take away 
those whom we love best, and leave our hearts crushed and 
bleeding, God comes near, and in answer to prayer gives his 
consolations, which are neither few nor small. In the dying 
hour, when the soul is about to leave the body and enter the 
eternal world, the Saviour is near to listen to the breathings 
of our last prayer. In sickness and health, in prosperity and 
adversity, at home or abroad, among strangers or friends, 
we can always pray. His ear is not heavy that he cannot 
hear. 

4. The widow went on her own account The business 
which took her to the judge was her own. No one was in- 
terested in her affairs, and no advantage would come to any 
one besides herself if her prayer was granted. How different 
is the errand upon which we go to God in prayer ! If our 
prayers are granted, God's glory will be advanced. The 
business which brings us to offer prayer concerns the majesty 
of heaven. We do not pray for ourselves only, but for our 
fellow men everywhere. We pray, " Thy kingdom come. 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven/' We pray that 
the gospel may be preached everywhere, and that all men 
may be led to believe and obey it. " Uphold me with thy 
free spirit/' said David. " Then will I teach transgressors 
thy ways ; and sinners shall be converted unto thee." 

5. The icidow went alone. She had no powerful friend 
who had influence with the judge to go with her to his house. 
She had no one to plead her cause and move his sympathy or 
sense of right. She was alone, but she hesitated not to go 
with boldness and present her own cause. 

But we have a great Friend, a powerful Intercessor. The 
Lord Jesus ever liveth and maketh intercession for us. He 
is our Friend and High Priest. He stands and offers the 



176 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

prayers of his people to God the Father. Will not these 
prayers be accepted ? 

6. The widow had no promise. Have we? "Ask, and it 
shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it 
shall be opened unto you ; for every one that asketh receiveth ; 
and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it 
shall be opened." "And ye shall seek nie, and find me, when 
ye shall search for me with all your heart." " Whatsoever 
ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." 
(John 16 : 26.) Such are a few of the promises which en- 
courage us to draw nigh to God. But the Bible is full of 
them; they stand out on almost every page, and invite us to 
come and find eternal life. 

7. Whenever she went the judge was provoked. In fact it 
was the annoyance which moved him to grant her request. 
Do we provoke God by the frequency or the importunity of 
our prayers ? Alas, no ! but by our silence and indifference. 
After such encouragements and promises to prayer, God is 
grieved that we pray so little. How cold are our best 
prayers ! How often do we only say our prayers ! How 
short are our seasons of prayer ! The Saviour spent whole 
nights in prayer. Shall we then deny him a little portion of 
our time morning and evening, to praise him for his mercies 
and to ask for a continuance of them ? Shall we grudge the 
time to ask him for his blessing for ourselves and for those 
whom we love? Think how rich and powerful God is, and 
how willing he is to do us good, if only we are willing to ask 
him ! And think how utterly indifferent and ungrateful are 
those who live day after day, and year after year, and never 
pray to God ! Let none of you live so ; but begin now, if you 
have never done it before, and determine that no day shall ever 
pass without prayer to God, through Jesus Christ the Saviour. 



Oh joy to every doubting heart, 

Doing the thing it would, 
When he, the holy, takes its part, 

And calls its choice the good. — Geo. MacDonald. 



Whene'er thou speakest to me I am happy ; 

When thou art silent I am satisfied. 

Thy presence is enough, I ask no more. 

Only to be with thee, only to see thee, 

Sufficeth me. My heart is then at rest. — Longfellow. 



O Martha, sister, spare thy labor and thy cost ; 
Tending the food that perisheth, diviner food is lost. 

— ElCHARD CKASHAW. 



178 



CHAPTER XV. 

MARY AND MARTHA. 

I give you a little incident in the history of a Jewish 
household. The village where the family lived was Bethany. 
So far as we know there were but three persons in the family, 
two sisters and a brother. No mention is made of the brother 
in the incident to which I refer; probably he was absent 
from home at this time. 

We learn from other passages of Scripture that our Lord 
was in the habit of visiting this family. He had no home 
of his own, and when in Jerusalem or in the neighborhood 
- he found a temporary home with these two sisters and their 
brother. We need not ask if he was a welcome guest ; the 
narrative shows this clearly enough. 

One day, in his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus 
with his disciples came again into this village, and Martha, 
who seems to have been the oldest member of the family, re- 
ceived him into her house. And the sacred writer says that 
" Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ; w and it is 
very likely that since his childhood and youth and early 
manhood at Nazareth his happiest hours had been spent in 
this family. 

We cannot help thinking that the visits of Jesus would 
make some stir. He was a very plain man ; he was plainly, 
perhaps meanly, clad ; he travelled on foot ; he was poor ; 
but wherever he went he carried light and love. When we 
read then that Martha received him into her house, we recall 
the incident when Zaccheus made haste and came down and 
"received" him joyfully. 

179 



180 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

At once Martha began to prepare an entertainment for her 
guest. Of course the best in the house was offered, but in 
such families as this the entertainment was probably very 
simple ; bread and honey and the common red wine of the 
country and fruits were probably all that was provided. But 
while Martha was busy in preparing such simple articles of 
food for Jesus and his friends, she observed that her sister 
Mary, who as she thought ought to be helping her, was sit- 
ting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his words. 

In the excitement of her own busy occupation Martha for- 
gets for a moment her love and her duty to her guest, and 
she breaks out in that expression which was a rebuke to her 
gentle sister and a reproof to her Master : " Lord, dost thou 
not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her 
therefore that she help me." 

If you will remember that in the hurried preparation for 
the entertainment of guests there might have been many 
things to vex and worry the mistress of the house, you will 
perhaps be more inclined to excuse poor Martha for her 
thoughtlessness and her harsh and almost cruel words. 

But her sister Mary was sitting at her Lord's feet and 
hearing his word. What were those gracious words that fell 
from his lips? Oh that we knew them ! But they are not 
recorded ; and our imagination may only attempt to conceive 
their richness and tenderness. 

Probably Mary was employed in some household work 
before Jesus came ; for Martha seems to intimate that she 
had dropped it or left it, or left Martha to serve alone with- 
out her help. Martha begins her complaint in a respectful 
manner, "Lord," or "Master," "Sir;" but she forgets this and 
goes on to say, " dost thou not care that my sister hath left 
me?" She chides his want of care, and dictates to her Lord. 



MARY AND MABTHA. 181 

Now in a certain sense Martha may have been right in 
chiding her sister, but not in rebuking the Lord. It was her 
duty to entertain her Lord and to give him the best she had ; 
and, either to make the entertainment more complete or to 
hasten the preparation, it w T as right for her to require Mary's 
assistance. If she was overdoing the matter, if she was vex- 
ing and irritating herself and her family by unnecessary prep- 
aration, as it seems she was, then she was wrong and deserved 
the rebuke she received. 

You see our Lord does not rebuke Martha for serving, but 
for too much serving. He tells her she is careful and troubled 
about " many things." She ought not to fret ; she ought not 
to be anxious ; for however vexatious and wearing are her 
domestic duties, there is one thing that is needful, that is, one 
thing supremely important, and " Mary hath chosen that 
good part, which shall not be taken away from her." 

Now both these women were true disciples of Jesus ; both 
of them loved the Lord from the heart ; both of them would 
gladly have spent their lives in his service. 

But there was a difference between them, a difference of 
temperament, of disposition, as we say. Mary was quiet, 
gentle, contemplative, devotional ; she saw with more heav- 
enly eyes, was moved with a purer, more perfect love« 
Martha was active, bustling, stirring ; apparently more anx- 
ious to do than to be. Mary seems to have been more anxious 
to be than to do. There are some people who seem to think 
that to be religious one must be up and doing, must be act- 
ively employed in outward religious works all the time. But 
just see how many people there are who cannot be up and 
doing all the time ! Think of the sick who are confined for 
months and years to their sick-beds or sick-rooms ! They can- 
not. be up and doing. They must sit or lie at the feet of Jesus. 



182 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

Although Mary was sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus and 
hearing his word, she was not idling her time away. She 
was ready for any active duty to which she might have been 
called. I have no doubt she would have sprung to her feet 
to wait on Christ, if he had called her. I believe she would 
have been as ready as Martha to feed the hungry, or clothe 
the naked, or care for the stranger, or visit the sick or the 
prisoner, or to do whatever Jesus said. And I believe she 
was more truly entertaining him by sitting at his feet and 
listening to his words than by vexing herself with household 
cares or cumbering herself by much serving, even though it 
was in honor of the Lord himself. There was something in 
her quicker instinct, her purer and more heavenly love, that 
told her that she could best prove her devotion to Jesus by 
sitting and hearing his gracious words. 

Yet we must not suppose she was a dreaming, sentimental 
woman, difficult to arouse to action, with no self-sacrifice. 
It does not appear that she was indifferent to household duties 
generally ; it was because she felt it more important to em- 
brace this opportunity to listen to the words of Christ that 
she exposed herself to Martha's censure. Jesus did not blame 
her; he praised her, rather, for giving the preference to the 
more important duty. And when we turn to look at Martha, 
we cannot help feeling that it is a good thing to be an active, 
industrious housekeeper. Jesus does not blame her for this, 
but for overdoing it to the neglect of other things which are 
more important. And after all, housekeeping is not the most 
important thing in the world. There is another thing that is 
more important still. It is that good part which Jesus told 
Martha that Mary had chosen — that "one thing needful/' 
that good part " which shall not be taken away from her." 
This one thing is the word of Christ, heavenly food, religion. 



MARY AND MARTHA. 183 

Now we might naturally suppose that Jesus would take 
this opportunity of indulging his human feelings, and that 
he would tell Martha at least that he appreciated her kind 
trouble. But the supreme importance that he attached to his 
own office as a religious teacher made him put aside every- 
thing that might have interfered with the carrying out of his 
work in any one soul. Mary was listening to his words, and 
rather than allow her to be deprived of this precious benefit, 
Christ let the good and kind Martha, who was lovingly busy- 
ing herself for him, feel somewhat hurt. He made these two 
affectionate women see that he had bread to give them that 
would endure to eternal life. 

I believe it is easier to do good than to be good ; and you 
will all agree with me if you will think about it. And I 
believe that as it is an easier thing to do good works than to 
be good in our thoughts and in our lives, many persons make 
the mistake of supposing that they are Christians, when they 
are only employed in good works. It is not a pleasant thing 
and not an easy thing to look into our hearts and examine 
ourselves, asking ourselves searching questions as to why we 
do certain things which it seems to be right to do. Suppose 
you are in the habit of reading the Scriptures and in the 
habit of daily secret prayer. Now just ask yourself why 
you do these things. I do not answer the questions for you, 
though perhaps I might do so; but it is better that you 
should answer the questions for yourselves and to yourselves. 
If you are not reading and praying every day, why are you 
not? If you are in the habit of doing these good things, why 
do you do them ? Do you read and pray for the same reason 
that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and heard his word — » 
because she loved the Saviour ? or do you do so because your 
conscience will give you no rest if you neglect them ? 



184 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

There is a feeling in the heart something like this : obe- 
dience in certain things will make up for the neglect of cer- 
tain other things. But you ought to know that you cannot 
blot out a sin by doing a duty. Future obedience cannot 
atone for past offences. Nothing but the grace of God 
through Christ can forgive sins and put them away. You 
may try other means for the cleansing and renewing of the 
heart, but they will fail. Others have tried in ten thousand 
instances, but always without success. 

It is easier to go to a religious service and listen to the 
good words that come from the lips of a Christian teacher 
than it is to shut one's self up and commune with the heart. 
It is easier to go to church three times a day than to go once 
or twice a day and then spend part of the rest of the time in 
the reading and study of the Bible. If the heart is right, 
if we are good, there will be no trouble about good works ; 
doing good will follow of course. 

Martha was a good, faithful woman, and Jesus loved her ; but 
she allowed her zeal in the desire to work for her Lord to out- 
run her judgment. The work she did for Jesus was a good work, 
but there was too much of it. She allowed it to cumber her 
and distress her, and hinder her in other and better work. He 
had rebuked her for this, although the work was done for him. 

There was another and a better part which Mary chose. 
It was to sit at the Lord's feet. The work of the house 
could be done any day ; it was done every day, — the prep- 
aration of meals, and other duties; but Jesus did not come 
to that house every day, and now that he is there, Mary 
thinks it better for her to catch every word that drops from 
his lips, for to-morrow he will be gone. And Jesus com- 
mends Mary because she chose that which could not be taken 
from her, — that is, divine instruction and faith. 



MARY AND MARTHA. 185 

In Longfellow's "Divine Tragedy" this is Mary's address 
to the Master, at whose feet she sits while Martha bustles 
about : 

O Master ! when thou comest it is always 
A Sabbath in the house. I cannot work ; 
I must sit at thy feet, must see thee, hear thee. 
I have a feeble, wayward, doubting heart, 
Incapable of endurance or great thoughts, 
Striving for something that it cannot reach, 
Ruffled and disappointed, wounded, hungry ; 
And only when I hear thee am I happy, 
And only when I see thee am at peace. 
Stronger than I, and wiser, and far better 
In every manner, is my sister Martha. 
Thou seest how well she orders everything 
To make thee welcome ; how she comes and goes, 
Careful and cumbered ever with much serving, 
While I but welcome thee with foolish words. 
Whene'er thou speakest to me, I am happy ; 
When thou art silent, I am satisfied. 
Thy presence is enough ; I ask no more. 
Only to be with thee, only to see thee, 
Sufficeth me : my heart is then at rest. 



Does it ever occur to you that Jesus comes to your house ? 
It may be at meal-time : do you ask him to bless the food ? 
It may be at bed-time : do you ask him to " abide with us ; 
for . . the day is far spent"? It may be in the early morn- 
ing : do you ask him to stay and spend the day with you ? 
We cannot see him, we cannot hear his voice, but he comes 
just as near as if we could. 

The lessons that I draw from this household incident are — 

1 . To be thoroughly true is a higher service, a larger serv- 
ice, a more lasting service, than to speak the truth. 

2. To be pure in heart brings you nearer to God, does 



186 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



more for your fellow creatures, bears a more excellent fruit, 
than a life spent in helping others to be pure. 

3. To be a Christian in your daily life makes more Chris- 
tians than preaching the gospel. 

Oh then, if any of you wish to do good, if any of you wish 
to serve the Lord and do his will, and if you think that the 
opportunities are not favorable, that you do not know how 
to serve him, let me tell you that the best way, though it is 
the hardest way, — the best way is to be good yourselves. 




Bethany. 



Oh happy home ! where with the hands of prayer 

Parents commit their children to the Friend, 
Who, with a more than mother's tender care, 

Will watch and keep them safely to the end ; ~ 
Where they are taught to sit at Jesus' feet, 

And listen to the words of life and truth, 
And learn to lisp his praise in accents sweet, 

From early childhood to advancing youth. 

— Lyra Domestica. 



This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the proph- 
ecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good 
warfare ; holding faith and a good conscience. — To Timothy. 



Self, the natural man, the old Adam, must have risen up before each of 
us in early manhood, if not sooner, challenging the true man within us, to 
which the Spirit of God is speaking, to a struggle for life or death. Gird 
yourself then for the fight, my young brother. This world and all others, 
time and eternity, for you hang upon the issue. — Hughes. 



188 



CHAPTER XVI. 

TIMOTHY. 

Ix his first missionary tour, and in one of the cities of 
Asia Minor, probably Antioch in Pisidia, the apostle Paul 
met for the first time the man who afterwards became his 
most intimate friend, the young Timothy, then probably about 
twenty years of age. The circumstance is not mentioned at 
the time, nor indeed for some two years afterwards, w 7 hen the 
apostle was on his second missionary tour, and was visiting 
the same cities. 

Among the throngs of young men w r ho were attracted by 
the strange preachers there must have been many of more or 
less interest, but among them all this young man stands out 
as the most conspicuous, and in many respects the most in- 
teresting, of all those who were turned to the Christian faith 
by the preaching of Paul. 

There must have been something in the character of this 
young man that made him specially attractive to the apostle. 
What was it ? 

It could not have been that they were of the same age, for 
Paul must have been about fifty years old, and Timothy was 
not half that age. Men in middle or advanced life are not 
apt to take into their closest friendship very young men. 
Neither was it that there was any bond of previous sympathy 
to draw them together ; for Timothy was of mixed parentage, 
his father being a Greek in religion, while his mother was a 
Jewess. It must have been that Timothy gave himself to the 
work of the Lord with all his heart. There was nothing uncer- 
tain or hesitating about him ; he was not afraid of anything. 

189 



190 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

He seems not to have been a member of the Jewish church, 
even although most carefully instructed in the Jewish Scrip- 
tures. He had a faithful mother and a faithful grandmother 
also, and they had trained him in the best ways to honor God 
and obey his parents. 

Timothy seems to have been in Antioch when Paul and 
Barnabas visited that city first, and he followed them in their 
tour through the cities of Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. He 
was a witness to the persecutions the apostles suffered at the 
hands of that fickle people, who at one moment would have 
offered sacrifices to them, supposing them to be gods, and at 
the next stoned Paul, as they supposed, to death. And yet, 
as far as we know, Timothy did not make himself known to 
the apostles at all. But this strange experience must have 
led him to repentance and the Christian way. Two years 
after this Paul found him at Lystra, living with his mother, 
who also believed ; and it was the cause of great joy to Paul 
that not only she but her mother shared with Timothy the 
faith of the gospel. 

Whatever it was that attracted Paul to Timothy, it is cer- 
tain that it was to be a companionship of the closest character. 
The apostle wanted Timothy to go forth with him on his mis- 
sionary journeys, and the young disciple became one of the 
band of missionaries. He left his home, his mother and his 
grandmother, if they were still living, and with no promise 
of reward in this world he gave up all for Christ. He went 
with the apostles through the cities of Asia Minor until they 
reached Troas, where the vision appeared to Paul which de- 
termined him to leave the shores of Asia and go over into 
Europe. Timothy was with Paul in the first voyage across 
the iEgean Sea, when they landed at Neapolis and proceeded 
to Philippi, where the most interesting incident of the oon- 



TIMOTHY. 191 

version of Lydia occurred, followed by the arrest, punish- 
ment and imprisonment of Paul and Silas in the dungeon of 
that city. He was with them in their journey through 
Greece to Thessalonica, where, on the Sabbath, in the syna- 
gogue, under the preaching of Paul, an uproar was raised by 
the Jews, and the Christians w r ere driven out of the city to 
Beroea ; but as it was not safe for Paul to remain there in easy 
reach of the Jews, he was sent away by the sea to go to 
Athens, while Silas and Timothy remained there until it 
should be safe for them to go to that place by land. 

Timothy, however, was not able to join his master at 
Athens ; but some time after this, when Paul had gone to 
Corinth, the capital of lower Greece and a place of great 
importance, Silas and Timothy came again and joined him 
and took their part in the work. 

Timothy, however, had not been idle while Paul was at 
Athens. He had been sent to Thessalonica on a mission to 
the church there, a mission requiring great tact and wisdom ; 
and when the report of the success of that visit was made to 
the apostle at Corinth, he was greatly comforted and rejoiced 
at the success. 

After a stay of some eighteen months in Corinth, Paul set 
sail for Syria, Timothy being in his company, touching at 
Ephesus, and thence on to Jerusalem. 

When Paul set out on his third and last missionary tour, 
Timothy was found still in his company. They took the same 
course as before, visiting the churches and establishing them 
in the faith. At Ephesus a long stay was made ; and while 
here Timothy was sent again across the sea to Macedonia. It 
is almost certain he went to Corinth again, for that was one 
of the most important places in which the apostle had planted 
a church. From thence Timothy proceeded to Ephesus, and 



192 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

no doubt was present at the famous burning of the books ; 
then he was sent to Macedonia again ; and then into lower 
Greece, where he was joined by the apostle again ; and from 
thence the company passed through Macedonia to Fhilippi, 
and so over the sea again to Troas once more, from whence 
they had first set out for Europe. 

After this, for a time, we hear nothing of Timothy, and 
are left to conjecture where he was. Some think that he re- 
turned to his old home in Derbe or Lystra, and waited for 
further directions from his master ; but this is only suppo- 
sition. We almost wish we could identify Timothy with his 
master during his strange experience at Jerusalem ; his escape 
by night from the fury of the Jews, under the military escort, 
to Csesarea; his long imprisonment there; the mock trials 
(we can call them nothing else) ; the long voyage and his 
shipwreck at Malta ; and his arrival a prisoner at Rome the 
next spring ; but we are not able to do so. 

Soon after, however, we know that Timothy rejoined his 
master at Rome, though his master was now a prisoner and 
to be tried for his life. 

There is reason to believe that Timothy remained with 
Paul during the whole time of the first imprisonment, more 
than two years. If so, he must have been present at the trial 
and acquittal and the discharge from prison. 

The love that Paul felt for Timothy is something remark- 
able. This is show r n not only in the two epistles that the 
apostle wrote to him, but also in those which he wrote to the 
churches. He makes very frequent mention of him ; speaks 
of the great services Timothy renders him ; of the great com- 
fort he has in his disciple's company and sympathy; and he 
gives him the great honor of associating the young disciple's 
name with his own in the greetings in several of the epistles 



TIMOTHY. 193 

that he addresses to others. When he speaks or writes of 
Timothy it is in most endearing terms, such as " my own son 
in the faith ;" " my child ;" " I have no man likeminded, 
who will naturally care for your state." Indeed he mentions 
the name of Timothy more than twenty times. What an 
honor ! 

There are three traits, perhaps, in the character of Timothy 
which, more than any others, mark him as the man to whom 
the great apostle would turn for sympathy and companion- 
ship. They are fidelity, affection and zeal. 

His fidelity, or faithfulness, was shown in the readiness 
with which he entered upon any duty to which he was called, 
and by staying in any place to which he was sent. We can- 
not think he ever hesitated when he was directed to go here 
or there; that he ever questioned the wisdom of him who 
sent him. He must have been sent to places of which he 
knew nothing, and among people who were strangers to him, 
and upon errands that required great skill and tact; and so 
far as we know, or have reason to believe, he went and stayed 
and was faithful in all things committed to his care. 

His affection was shown in giving up his family ties for the 
cause of Christ, as made known to him by his master. To 
that master he devoted himself with an earnestness of affec- 
tion which knew no abatement, so far as we know, as long as 
the apostle lived. He was with his master in heat and cold, 
in perils of robbers, and in perils of waters, and in perils by 
the Jews. He followed him to Rome, and probably stayed 
with him in his gloomy prison, and served him with the 
loving affection of a son. 

When they were separated, as they were in Paul's second 
imprisonment, and when the apostle pined in his prison alone, 
he longed for the society of his child, his son, as he called 
13 



194 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

him ; and he wrote him two letters, which will carry Tim- 
othy's name down through all history to the end of time. 
The letters are full of good counsel, both to Timothy per- 
sonally and also to him as a most important officer in the 
Church of Christ. No one can read these letters and not 
feel that the heart of the master goes out to his pupil, his son 
in the faith. 

The zeal of Timothy is shown by his entire devotion to the 
work of the Lord as a missionary with Paul. He was prob- 
ably well educated; his father was a Greek in religion ; he 
had opportunities of education in the schools ; he must have 
been qualified to go among men and to speak to them of the 
most important things that concern them ; and the education 
of the schools then, as now, must have made him all the bet- 
ter qualified for this great work. He might have turned his 
education to purposes of trade, or to the learned professions, 
or to letters, as men of his time did ; but he had higher aims 
than these ; he believed in the new religion, the religion of 
Jesus Christ, and his zeal led him to give up everything for 
Christ, who gave himself to the death of the cross to save 
sinners. So far as w r e know, that zeal never wavered. He 
never looked back, he never regretted that he had given up 
all ; he went right on, knowing nothing but his duty to fol- 
low Christ, as he was directed by his master. 

What are the lessons that the life of Timothy brings to 
us ? Why not take the same three words— -fidelity, affection 
and zeal — which were so prominent in his life, and apply 
them to ourselves ? 

1. Fidelity. How can I apply this to you? It means 
faithfulness in everything that pertains to our duty to God, 
to those who are set over us and to one another. " What- 
ever duties we may have to perform to ourselves or others, 



TIMOTHY. 195 

we ought never to neglect or slight them to save ourselves 
inconvenience or trouble ; but we ought to perform them in a 
thorough, careful and prudent manner." 

Your duty to God is the first duty for you to perform. 
You know that he made you, and that he has a right to all 
that you are or can have. He does not require a hard serv- 
ice. He asks your love and obedience, and promises to you 
all that you need in this life and in the life that is to come. 
Any man that could come and offer you such terms, ycu 
would receive with shouts of joy ; but when God offers this, 
you turn coldly away, and say in effect that you do not be- 
lieve in it and do not care for it ; and all that can be said 
and done for you cannot move your will. 

But you have duties to those who are placed over you at 
school. You are there for education ; but it is entirely be- 
yond the power of those who teach, to make you learn. 
That is your part; and if you are faithful to those who 
teach you, the purpose of your being at school will be accom- 
plished. But you must be faithful in the study of your les- 
sons and faithful in the part you take in all that concerns 
your education. You cannot suppose that young Timothy, 
when he went to his Greek school, frittered away his time 
and his opportunities and allowed the season of youth and 
his school-boy days to pass, making little or no improve- 
ment, as some boys that you and I know, do ; else he had 
not been chosen by the great apostle to be his companion and 
friend — his own son, as he called him — and so have his name 
sent down through these ages of history. 

You owe duties to your companions, your schoolmates, as 
well. The young people who are about you in your every- 
day life have claims upon you — every one of them has — as 
you also have claims upon them. You owe it to each other 



196 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

to be manly, upright, abhorring lies and having no sympathy 
with liars and with those who indulge in improper talk. 
There ought to be a tone of manliness among you which will 
make every boy look up to you as a man who will frown 
upon everything that will disparage the good name of his 
school, as it is known by the character of its pupils. 

The next word is affection. You owe this first of all to 
your parents if they be living, or to those next of kin who 
have charge of you ; to your schoolmates, to your teachers. 
It was an apostle who said — and it w r as the same who rescued 
Timothy from his Jewish religion and made him a Chris- 
tian — it was an apostle who said, "Be kindly affectioned one 
to another with brotherly love ; in honor preferring one an- 
other ; not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the 
Lord." Did you ever think what a blessed, happy w r orld 
this would be if this advice of the apostle were followed by 
all people? It would be almost like heaven. 

The last word that I use is zeal. These three words — 
fidelity, affection, zeal — are the words that I said were the 
prominent traits in young Timothy's character, and might 
have been those which drew the heart of the apostle so closely 
toward him. Zeal, spirit, true ambition, persistent, joyous 
efforts in the right direction, will go far to make one happy 
and useful in whatever he undertakes in the pursuits of life. 
This zeal you can apply to your daily studies, to increase 
interest in your tasks and love of study, for it will bring 
with it cultivation of mind and heart, growth in all useful 
knowledge, and love for knowledge, so that the more you 
know the more useful you can be ; and the more good you 
can do the higher you can rise in all that is useful and good 
in life. The world is before you all, and with the blessing 
of God you can do well, all of you ; but success will not 



TIMOTHY. 197 

come to drones, to lazy fellows who shirk their lessons and 
who care little whether they do well or ill from day to day 
as the time passes, and as the day approaches when you must 
go from school to make your own way in the world. 

See what a name young Timothy made for himself! As 
long as language is spoken or books are read will the name 
of Timothy be handed down on the brightest records of all 
history. He obeyed the divine call, he left everything dear 
to him to follow him who was chosen of God to point him 
to the Saviour of men. You have heard that call ; not from 
apostolic lips, it is true, but from the lips of those who speak 
to you in the name of the Lord. 

Timothy had a good mother. She had instructed him 
early and faithfully in the Holy Scriptures. Those Scrip- 
tures in his day were the Old Testament only, and in very 
inconvenient shape and not easily handled or studied ; but 
you have the New Testament also, and these Scriptures are 
very much more interesting and much more easily under- 
stood than the Old Testament Scriptures which Timothy 
studied at his mother's knee. 

These Scriptures (the apostle said) were able to make Tim- 
othy wise unto salvation. You read them or you hear them 
every day; what effect will they have on you? From a 
babe Timothy had known them, — before he could read, 
almost as soon as he could talk. You too, it may be, have 
known of them from your earliest childhood. What good 
will they do you ? 



How mean ye thus by weeping 

To break my very heart ? 
We both are in Christ's keeping, 

And cannot therefore part ; 
Nor time nor place can sever 

The bonds which us have bound ; 
In Christ abide forever 

Who once in him are found. — Spitta. 



But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto 
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which 
I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of 
God.— The Acts. 



No, neither life, nor death, nor pain, nor joy, 
Nor all that worketh in the height or depth, 

God's chosen ones can hurt 

Or banish from his love. — E. H. Plumptre. 



198 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PAUL AT MILETUS. 

The apostle Paul had spent a week at Troas. What had 
been the occupation of those seven days we are not informed. 
Doubtless here, as in other cities, he was going about from 
house to house, confirming the saints and establishing them 
in the faith, and preaching Christ and him crucified to those 
who were ignorant. 

But the events of the last hours of his stay there are de- 
scribed w r ith great minuteness. It was the evening of the 
first clay of the week. On the following morning the vessel 
was to sail, the vessel which was to convey him to Judsea, 
so that he might reach Jerusalem before the approaching 
Jewish Pentecost. 

The Christians of Troas met and celebrated that feast of 
love which Christ enjoined upon his followers. The place 
was an upper room, with a balcony projecting over the out- 
ward street, or the inward court. The night was dark, for 
the moon was still young, and many lamps were burning in 
the room where the congregation was assembled. The place 
was hot and probably crowded. The apostle felt that it 
might be the last time he should address them, and with 
great earnestness he continued his speech or discourse or con- 
versation until midnight. Here it was that a young man 
named Eutychus, overcome with exhaustion, heat and wear- 
iness, sunk into a deep sleep, fell from his seat in the balcony 
or window in the third story to the pavement below, and was 
taken up dead. Paul, imitating the power and the example 
of that Master whose doctrine he was proclaiming, went down 

199 



200 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

to the ground, fell upon the dead body, and embracing it said 
to those about him, " Trouble not yourselves ; for his life is 
in him." And they brought the young man alive, and were 
not a little comforted. But the apostle was not yet ready to 
depart ; he longed to continue his labor here. He could not 
however detain the ship, and knowing that she would touch 
at Assos, further down the coast and around the cape Lee- 
tum, and that he could reach the same place by going across 
the country on foot in half the time, he allowed Luke and 
some of his companions to go on in the vessel, while he pro- 
longed still further his stay and his labors at Troas. A walk 
of a few hours over the grand old Roman road (for the Ro- 
mans were famous makers of roads, and their civilization in 
this direction can be traced everywhere even to this day) 
would bring him past the hot springs, and through the oak 
woods — then in full foliage, for it was the spring of the year — 
which cover that beautiful shore with greenness and shade, 
and over the mountain streams to Assos. 

Here rejoining his vessel, they continued their journey, 
touching at Mytilene, and the next day passing Chios, the 
next touching at Samos, tarrying awhile at Trogyllium, com- 
ing the next day to Miletus. 

At Miletus the vessel remained long enough to send to 
Ephesus, between thirty and forty miles away to the north, 
to the elders of the church there to come and meet him. 
They must have heard of his arrival so near to them with 
great delight. He had been their pastor for three years, 
during which he had ceased not to warn every one day and 
night with tears. You who know the closeness and the ten- 
derness of the relation between Christians and the pastor by 
whose ministry they are brought to believe, can conceive the 
eagerness, the haste, with which the elders of the church at 



PAUL AT MILETUS. 201 

Ephesus would respond to the invitation to come and meet 
their old pastor. " By those who travel on such an errand 
that journey would not be regarded long nor tedious, nor 
would they in that soft climate care much whether it was 
made by day or night. The elders could easily reach Miletus 
the day after that on which the summons was received ; and 
though they might be weary when they arrived, they would 
soon forget that when they saw their friend and instructor." 

The elders were gathered together by themselves — how 
many they were we do not know — gathered in some solitary 
spot, for they would shun observation at such a time ; very 
probably on the shore within sight of the town of Miletus, 
and within sight of the ship which was so soon to separate 
them forever. It moves the profoundest depths of feeling 
and of nature to stand on any shore and look at the vessel 
which is to separate dear friends even for a few months; but 
here was to be a separation which was to be followed by no 
reunion except on the shores of eternity. 

It must have been an affecting scene. The elders, grave, 
serious men, probably not without many private Christians 
who had come with them, bearing in their persons and cloth- 
ing the marks of travel, were sitting or standing around the 
apostle to listen to his farewell words. 

Behind them stretched away inland the white houses of 
Miletus, a city whose highest prosperity was reached five 
hundred years before this, and back of the city the swelling 
undulations rolling away to the north over which these weary- 
travellers had made their hurried journey. Immediately 
about them was the sandy beach on which the little boat may 
have been resting which was to convey them to their ship ; 
before them was the wide sea on which they were to sail, with 
the islands in the distance. The apostle, a careworn, anxious 



202 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

man, stands in the midst of this anxious group to speak to 
them for the last time. How shall he speak ? What shall 
he say to them ? How the memory of the past rises up as 
he looks on those familiar faces again ! How he recalls the 
instructions of the three years when he went in and out be- 
fore them, breaking to them the bread of life ! Shall he re- 
prove, rebuke or exhort them ? Shall he chide them for the 
past or encourage them for the future ? You may see what, 
at this most solemn and affecting interview, the apostle did 
say, by reading Acts 20 : 17-36. 

" There is in these concluding words a world of evidence 
for the authenticity of the speech, whether we consider the 
unmistakable harmony of the saying with all that we read 
of our Saviour in the gospels, or the consistency of St. Paul 
with himself in thus concluding with a reference to his dear 
Lord and Master, and then immediately kneeling down to 
pray, or the impossibility that either forgery or tradition 
could have fitted such a quotation into such a scene. 

" Nowhere in all the books that were ever written can we 
find anything more affecting than the interview of Paul 
with the Ephesian elders. Hundreds of sermons have been 
preached from it ; its several verses have been made texts on 
which volumes have been written ; it has been read times 
innumerable when Christian pastors were leaving their fields 
of labor, and the English church has appointed it to be read 
at the consecration of her bishops." 

And yet, after all, it is I suppose only an outline of the 
discourse ; a mere epitome of the words which really passed 
at that memorable interview. It is in the highest degree im- 
probable that the words which are recorded here, and which 
may be read in five minutes, contain all that was said on that 
most interesting occasion. 



PAUL AT MILETUS. 203 

This scene is most interesting to us, even if we are not pas- 
tors and have no special care of the church, who are not (as 
far as we know) about to part from friends for a long time 
and probably for all time, as the apostle thought was to be 
his experience, — it is most interesting to us, I say, because it 
reveals to us again, and in most vivid and softened coloring, 
the inner life of Paul. We are so in the habit of regarding 
him as an apostle full of zeal and the Holy Ghost, full of 
fire and energy, carrying the gospel into heathen cities, peril- 
ling his life when need be, never shrinking from danger or 
exposure, accepting all manner of ill treatment from the 
heathen and from those who had by his means been brought 
to a knowledge of Christianity, rebuking with sternness those 
who turned away from the truth, reproving the Roman gov- 
ernor on his tribunal, refusing to leave the prison at Philippi 
until the Roman magistrates who had abused him came them- 
selves to fetch him out, that we hardly know him as a man 
like ourselves, but with the kindest heart, the tenderest feel- 
ings, the most human sympathies. 

It seems quite natural to hear his bold appeal to the elders, 
calling them to witness his faithfulness during the three years 
of his ministry among them ; how, amidst tears and tempta- 
tions and conspiracies, he went about among them, seeking 
no concealment, but teaching them publicly and from house 
to house, urging both Jew and Greek to repentance toward 
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. All this is in 
keeping with the true courage which marked his whole career. 

" But we see him here as one whose very heart was broken 
when his brethren wept ; who ' lived if they stood fast in the 
Lord;' who ' was glad when he was weak and they were 
strong/ and who was willing to have imparted unto them his 
own soul, because they were dear unto him. 



204 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

" He who had the constant contemplation of his Lord and 
Saviour was nevertheless as susceptible of the affections of 
human nature and the influences of the external world as if 
he were a stranger to that contemplation. He who had rest 
and peace in the love of Christ was not satisfied without the 
love of man. He whose supreme reward was the approba- 
tion of God looked for the approval of his brethren. He 
loved them not only for ( Jesus' sake/ as he expressed it, but 
for their own sake also. He lived in them, he felt with and 
for them, he was anxious about them, he gave them help, and 
in turn he looked for comfort from them. His mind was 
like some instrument of music, harp or viol, the strings of 
which vibrate, though untouched, with the notes which other 
instruments give forth when swept by a master's hand. Even 
when he was about to be martyred, still as before he had time 
to think of his friends, of those who were near him, those 
who were away, and those who had deserted him. He who is 
the special preacher of divine grace is also the special friend 
and intimate of human nature. He who reveals to us the mys- 
teries of God's sovereign decrees manifests at the same time the 
tenderest interest in the souls of individuals." — D?\ Newman. 

It must have been a blessed privilege to be present at that 
meeting and hear that discourse. How eagerly the elders 
must have looked into that countenance ! How would they 
watch the expression of those eyes that must often, very often 
during this interview have streamed with tears ! We almost 
regret that some portrait or bust of the great apostle has not 
been handed down to us. The pictorial representations of 
his person that have been attempted give only the outlines of 
form and feature, without attempting the delineation of face. 
If Raphael, with anything like the genius and skill which 
guided his pencil and brush in the far-famed Madonna which 



PAUL AT MILETUS. 205 

makes the Dresden gallery one of the brightest of all picture 
galleries, had produced an adequate ideal of the apostle Paul, 
with what delight should we gaze and linger and continue to 
gaze, and try to bring up in imagination the grand and glori- 
ous character depicted there ! That great artist, in his famous 
cartoons, has represented the apostle in several of the most 
important incidents of his life ; but the purpose was to rep- 
resent the scenes and surrounding characters rather than the 
face of the apostle himself. But we do not need the paint- 
er's brush nor the sculptor's chisel ; the New Testament gives 
the best portraiture to those who study it carefully. 

We do not know certainly whether the apostle ever met 
the elders again, though it is possible he did so, as the tradi- 
tions of the early church would lead us to suppose. 

But we know that within one hundred years from the day 
on which he parted from them at that sea-side at Miletus he 
met them all again, unless indeed the grievous wolves, against 
which he so solemnly warned them, had destroyed some of 
them ; for within that time his life and that of all the elders 
had ended, and they had passed from this world of labor 
and trial and suffering. 

What joy it must have been to meet them again ! Some 
had gone up from the martyr's struggle, and found their old 
master ready to receive them. 

"At the close of this address, they kneeled down on the 
shore within sound of the waves as they rippled over the 
level, sandy beach, and he prayed with them all. It was no 
ordinary prayer. They all united in it, or followed the 
apostle's prayer with their own broken supplications. There 
was an irrepressible outbreak of grief and of tears, natural 
and not sinful ; they fell on Paul's neck, overwhelming him 
with tears, and with what would seem strange to us but not 



206 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

to them in the East, kisses of natural, heart-felt affection. 
They sorrowed over his parting words, over their pwn des- 
olate condition now that he was about to leave them, over the 
future so full of apprehension to him, but most of all that 
they should see his face no more. And then they accom- 
panied him down to the very edge of the water, where he 
embarked on his long voyage." 

It is a blessed thought that if we shall ever reach heaven 
we may see the apostle Paul, and know him and .may be 
allowed to tell him how we loved to study the history of his 
life on earth ; how we honored him for his self-sacrifice ; his 
entire devotion to the work to which he was appointed ; his 
patience under affliction ; his uncomplaining submission to 
wrong and violence ; his love of his friends ; his dependence 
on human sympathy ; his fearless denunciation of wickedness 
even in high places ; his long-suffering ; his willingness to be 
anything or do anything for his Master, and his confidence 
in God through it all. 

If there is anything in this life, the greatest I think of all 
human lives except that of our Lord, — if there is anything in 
this life to claim your admiration, anything to excite your 
hearts and move you to acts of self-denial and labor and toil 
for the same Master whom he served, let me urge you to fol- 
low Paul's example as he followed Christ, and take all the com- 
fort you may from the assurance that when you come to lay 
down this mortal life, and are removed from this world to 
that other and better life, you will see not only the divine 
Redeemer whose blood has bought you and whose Spirit has 
sanctified you, but you will know the spirits of just men made 
perfect ; and certainly not among the least of these that glori- 
ous apostle whose life and character we have been studying, 
and whose companionship will be ours forever and ever. 



And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, and 
for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver 
you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given 
you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, 
but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. — St. Matthew. 



Paul's powers were not art, but instinct — the finest instinct of courtesy — 
the noblest generosity of heart. He did not wish for his worst enemies 
such misfortunes as had fallen to his lot — he did wish for them all such 
peace and joy and hope as he had in his Lord and Master Christ. — 
Haweis. 



O God, who, through the preaching of the blessed apostle Saint Paul, 
hast caused the light of the gospel to shine throughout the world ; grant, 
we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remem- 
brance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by fol- 
lowing the holy doctrine which he taught ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 



208 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PAUL AND AGRIPPA. 

With words of bold and earnest declamation did Paul close 
his address before Agrippa.* The occasion was a memorable 
one. It was the fifth and last time in the presence of the 
Jews that he was making his apology or defence. Something 
more than two years before, he had been arrested in the tem- 
ple at Jerusalem while in the act of fulfilling a vow, and 
would have been put to death on the spot but for the timely 
rescue of the Roman authority. On the way from the tem- 
ple area to the castle, and even on the stairs, he turned and 
by permission of the officer made an address to the people, 
calming their rage by the solemn and sacred tones of their 
own Hebrew tongue. But when he came to announce his 
mission, that God had sent him to the Gentiles, they inter- 
rupted him with savage fury, shouting, "Away with such a 
fellow from the earth : for it is not fit that he should live." 

The next day he was brought before the Jewish council, 
but they were in no mood to hear a calm defence, and willfully 
perverting his first words they threatened him with personal 
violence, which perhaps was only averted by his reference to 
the doctrine of the resurrection, the bare mention of which 
divided the assembly ; the Pharisees and Sadducees (of which 
it was composed) taking sides for and against Paul, and thus 
throwing the council into confusion and strife, in the course 
of which Paul, in danger of being pulled in pieces, was taken 
by force from among them and restored to the security of his 
prison. 

* Acts, 26th chapter. 
• 14 209 



210 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

This was followed by the flight or hurried march that 
same night to Csesarea, where, in a few days, the high priest 
and his orator Tertullus having followed him, Paul made his 
third defence, winding up again with a reference to the doc- 
trine of the resurrection. 

But this trial was partial only. The orator made his 
charges, but«Jie had no witnesses to prove them; he seems 
to have forgotten that before a Roman tribunal nothing was 
taken for granted without proof, and that of all people the 
Romans had the profoundest respect for the law. Felix, 
therefore, put off the trial until witnesses should come down 
from Jerusalem, amusing himself meanwhile by having Paul 
brought out from time to time before himself and his wife 
Drusilla, who was a Jewess, that they might hear the enthu- 
siast preach concerning his faith in Christ. 

But Felix was deposed or recalled, and Festus, a new gov- 
ernor, came into the province, and taking the earliest oppor- 
tunity of going to Jerusalem, he was set upon immediately 
by the high priest and others, who urged him to send for Paul 
to Jerusalem, so that they might assassinate him on the way. 
But Festus refused, saying that he should return to Csesarea 
in a few days, and charging the Jews to go down and have 
the trial before him there. 

So when Festus returned to Csesarea, the very next day he 
held a court and commanded Paul to be brought before him. 
The Jews were there with their old charges, which however 
they were no more able to prove than before. Crowding 
round about their long-lost victim, eager as hungry wolves to 
fasten on him, they yet brought no new complaints, but the 
old charges of heresy, sacrilege and treason, preferred with 
clamor and bitterness. The accusations, " which they could 
not prove," were " many and grievous." 



PAUL AND AGRIPPA. 211 

The procurator was perplexed. The charges were of the 
most serious character; the prosecutors were dreadfully in 
earnest. What they lacked in evidence they made up in pos- 
itiveness and bitterness ; the prisoner was helpless, he had no 
advocate, no orator, he was alone, without powerful friends; 
why should he not be given up to their will? But this, Fes- 
tus could not do. The stern Roman law, which he was bound 
to obey in its application to the humblest person, would not 
sanction such injustice; especially he dared not trifle with it 
so early in his official career ; so it occurred to him that he 
could keep himself within the statutes and yet cultivate pop- 
ularity with the Jews by changing the place of trial to Jeru- 
salem. This was exactly what the Jews desired. But the 
apostle, who knew his legal rights and who knew he could 
not have a fair trial in Jerusalem, and who knew also that 
the enmity of the Jews was unprincipled and implacable and 
would only be satisfied with his death, boldly declared his 
innocence of any wrong to the Jews, claiming that his judge 
also knew that he was not guilty, and asserting that if he had 
done anything worthy of death he was willing to die ; but he 
denied the right of any man to deliver him to the Jews, and 
closed by appealing to Csesar. 

" In the provinces of the Roman empire the supreme crim- 
inal jurisdiction was exercised by the governors. To this 
jurisdiction the provincials were subject without appeal ; but 
Roman citizens had the right to stop proceedings before the 
governors by appealing to the tribunes, whose intervention at 
once changed the case to the ordinary tribunals at Rome. By 
the mere pronouncing of the words, i I appeal unto Caesar,' 
Paul instantly removed his cause from the magistrate before 
whom he stood to the supreme tribunal of the emperor at 
Rome." 



212 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

But while waiting for an opportunity to send Paul to 
Rome, Festus received some distinguished visitors. The 
young Agrippa and his sister Bernice came from Csesarea- 
Philippi, Herod's seat of government, to offer their congrat- 
ulations to the new procurator at Csesarea by the sea. 

During the time of the visit, and in the course of an ordi- 
nary conversation, Paul's name was mentioned. And Festus 
told the king the story, how his predecessor Felix had left 
Paul in prison, where he was found by Festus ; how when at 
Jerusalem the Jews had revived their charges and demanded 
judgment; how he had explained to them the principle of 
the Roman law that no man could be condemned without 
being confronted by his accusers ; how at his suggestion the 
Jews had gone down to Csesarea and the case had been brought 
up again ; how the accusers had really no capital crime to 
charge against the prisoner, but only certain questions of their 
own religion, especially with regard to a man named Jesus, 
who was dead, but whom Paul affirmed to be alive. But, 
he goes on to say, not with entire frankness however, for he 
conceals the true reason for his conduct, — but because I 
doubted of such questions, I proposed that the case should 
be transferred to Jerusalem for trial ; but the prisoner objected 
to this, and made his appeal to Caesar. 

Now Agrippa was a Jew by birth, though his education 
had been mainly at Rome. He knew at least the theory of 
the Jewish faith, and that this Jesus who had been referred 
to so contemptuously by Festus was one who claimed to 
be the Jewish Messiah. His curiosity therefore was excited 
to see and hear the man who believed in this Jesus, and he 
expressed to Festus his desire to hear Paul himself. 

With probably no other or higher purpose than to give a 
sort of amusement to his illustrious guests — an amusement 



PAUL AND AGRIPPA. 213 

worthy of such a Roman as Festus was, to whom the enthu- 
siasm and faith of Paul were but a curious phenomenon — Fes- 
tus made preparations for another hearing. 

The scene that occurred on the morrow was almost dra- 
matic. It has been often described, and nothing new can be 
added to its details. Let us pause a moment, however, on 
the characters and their place in the scene, that we may better 
understand what was said and done. 

" There are Agrippa and Bernice, who had come with great 
pomp into the place of hearing. AVhat that ' great pomp' 
may mean we must infer from the fact that these were royal 
personages, and that in that day, as indeed now, all the crowd 
of attendants, the personal decorations, the formal and im- 
posing ceremonies that could be summoned were displayed. 

" There was Festus the governor, with the sterner dignity 
that became the real authority, invested with the Roman dress 
and the symbols of Roman authority ; in the hall the chief 
captains and principals of the city, both Pagans and Jews ; 
and before the king, who seems to have occupied the place of 
authority, he whom Agrippa had called ' the man/ 

" Paul is now surrounded by the civil and military state of 
the governor, and with royal visitors professing the Jewish 
religion seated in the hall with Festus. The governor makes 
his introductory speech, as uncandid as before, describing in 
a very few words the case as he had found it and had disposed 
of it. And then Agrippa, eager to hear what this enthusiast, 
this pervert from the Jewish faith, would say, graciously per- 
mits him to speak for himself. 

" Now the apostle has a freer range than ever before. It 
is no scene of violent excitement now. He is doubtless in a 
difficult position, for his audience is mixed. But he does not 
speak under constraint and with the fear at every moment of 



214 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

a violent interruption. It is true that the chain is on the 
wrist of that hand which he stretches out while he speaks. 
He has possibly also suffered in health, for his imprisonment 
has lasted more than two years ; but he has been for some 
time under the calm protection of the Roman law. Thus, 
though here too he is making a i defence/ he can safely take 
a higher and a more distinctly evangelical ground. Some- 
thing was due to the fact that here the doctrine of the resur- 
rection, the truth of Christianity, is the turning point, as at 
Jerusalem it was the mission to the Gentiles ; but there was 
more in the mere circumstances of the occasion which gave 
the apostle a wider scope than had been allowed on the stairs 
of the temple. Thus, if Luke's plain narrative is a colorless 
sketch of the conversion, and the account given by Paul him- 
self in the temple court was a Jewish picture of the same 
event, we have here all the Christian features marked as 
strongly as possible. On the former occasion he addressed 
the infuriated populace, and made his defence against the 
charges with which he was hotly pressed, of profaning the 
temple and apostatizing from the Jewish law. He now passes 
by these accusations, and addressing himself to a more dis- 
passionate hearer he takes the highest ground, and holds him- 
self up as the apostle and messenger of God. With this view 
therefore he paints in more striking colors the awful scene of 
his conversion, and repeats more minutely that heavenly call 
which it was impossible for him to disobey, and in obeying 
which, though he incurred the displeasure of his countrymen, 
he continued to receive the divine favor." — Howson. 

It is not necessary here to follow the apostle in the suc- 
cessive steps of his defence or apology. It is enough to say 
that he insisted more than ever on the close connection be- 
tween prophecy and the new faith ; that he admitted no other 



PAUL AND AGRIPPA. 215 

crime than that of believing in the fulfillment of a promise 
which the Jews themselves believed in, but which they re- 
fused to believe had been fulfilled in Jesus, and that the 
Messiah whom Moses and the prophets had foretold and 
preached w r as in reality Jesus of Nazareth. 

We naturally look to see what effect the apostle's speech 
had upon his various hearers. 

The Roman heard him till he spoke of Christ as the first 
that had risen from the dead, and then scornfully interrupted 
him. " Paul, thou art mad ; thy much learning doth turn 
thee to madness." He cannot understand his earnestness, so 
unlike the calm indifference with which religious subjects 
were regarded by the upper classes in Rome. He regards 
Paul as an enthusiast, as acting under an infatuation which 
could spring only from insanity. 

But the apostle, with exceeding tact and courtesy, reminds 
the governor that the apology was not addressed to him but 
to the king ; and then appealed to Agrippa as a witness of 
the truth of the prophets. " King Agrippa, believest thou 
the prophets? I know that thou believest." 

What was the effect upon Agrippa ? His answer is one of 
the most familiar phrases in the Scriptures, " Almost thou 
persuadest me to be a Christian ;" and yet its meaning is not 
absolutely certain. 

It has been variously represented as a trivial jest, a bitter 
sarcasm, a grave irony, a burst of anger, an expression of a 
sincere conviction. 

Literally it is something like this, "With but little per- 
suasion thou w r ouldst fain make me a Christian." 

It may be that Agrippa is describing what he thought Paul 
w T as fancying in his own mind, reckoning on the persuasions 
he had expressed, and that he speaks of something not that 



216 



OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 



he (Agrippa) is likely to become, but some condition of mind 
that in Agrippa contrasts strangely with his present worldly 
condition and intentions ; thus, " Lightly (that is, with small 
trouble) art thou persuading thyself that thou canst make me 
a Christian ;" and the words, in connection with Paul's hav- 
ing attempted to make Agrippa a witness on his side, may 
be understood thus, " I am not so easy to be made a Chris- 
tian of as thou supposest." 

There was another hearer who occupied in part the royal 
seat that day. What was the effect upon her ? for she too 
was a deeply-interested spectator of all that was said and 
done there. History tells us nothing of her impressions on 
that day, but as to her subsequent life it tells us, alas, too 
much. It is a life that cannot be dwelt upon in its details ; 
it is enough for us to know that whatever the effect the 
apostle's preaching might have had upon others, upon her 
heart and life at least it was powerless. 




Bernice (on a Coin of Polemo II.)* 



Rest comes at length ; though life be long and dreary, 
The day must dawn, and darksome night be past ; 

All journeys end in welcomes to the weary, 

And heaven, the heart's true home, will come at last. 

— F. W. Faber. 



Enough, Paul, enough ; and now 
A crown in heaven awaits thy brow ; 
Thy earthly toils are nearly done, 
Thy heavenly prize is all but won : 
Long tossed by ills, on land and sea, 
The shore is all but gained by thee. 

— Parisian Breviary. 



Measure thy life by loss instead of gain ; 
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth ; 
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, 
And whoso suffers most hath most to give. 

— H. E. Hamilton King. 



218 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 

" After two years imprisonment at Csesarea by the sea, 
and repeated examinations before Felix and Festus, successive 
Roman governors, and before King Agrippa the last of the 
Herod family, Paul appealed unto Caesar." 

It became necessary therefore to send him to Rome ; and 
probably preparations were made to send him by the earliest 
opportunity. In the harbor there would seem to have been 
no ship bound to Italy ; but there was a merchantman on her 
way from Egypt to Adramyttium, a seaport in Asia Minor, 
and in this vessel they embarked, expecting at some port 
where they might touch to find a vessel on her way to Italy. 

Of those who embarked on this vessel we know the names 
of the apostle Paul, and of Luke and Aristarchus his com- 
panions, and* of Julius the centurion. There were " other 
prisoners" besides Paul; for it was not uncommon to send 
persons to Rome if they appealed to the imperial court ; but 
we know nothing of their circumstances, nor even their 
names ; and these were all under the care of Julius the cen- 
turion, or as we should say captain, who had with him sol- 
diers. He seems to have been a very sensible person, court- 
eous and gentlemanly, and his generous treatment of the 
apostle is quite remarkable. 

It was about the middle or latter part of August, a.d. 58, 
that the vessel weighed her anchors and set sail on her north- 
erly course. She was a coasting vessel (in fact most ships of 
that day "hugged the shore"), and the view from the deck 
of the vessel must have been most interesting. There were 

219 



220 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

the mountains of Samaria in the background, then the bold 
front of Mount Carmel, then the city of Ptolemais ; beyond 
were the hills about Nazareth, perhaps the heads of Gil boa 
and Tabor ; then the white cliffs of Cape Blanco, and Tyre 
with its crowded port; and then, far away, the southern 
ridges of Lebanon ; and so on until they reached the safe 
harbor of Sidon. But there was no wharf here, and the ship 
lay off in the roadstead, and communicated with the shore by 
little boats, just as the steamers lay off now, and land or take 
off their passengers. Just here it is noted for the first time 
that Julius the centurion treats his prisoner with considerate 
courtesy and kindness ; for he permits him to go ashore to 
see his friends and " refresh himself." Dean Alford says on 
this passage, " Getting attention paid him by his friends, 
which perhaps was to obtain from them that outfit for the 
voyage which, on account of the official precision of his cus- 
tody at Csesarea, he would not there be provided with." The 
dean was laughed at for this, as it was supposed, fanciful ex- 
planation ; but Dean Plumptre says the Greek word suggests 
the thought of a provision of personal comforts, clothing and 
the like. The apostle knew the discomforts of the sea (he 
had been shipwrecked three times before this), and we all 
know how essential to comfort it is to make special arrange- 
ments of dress, even in our easy-going and comfortable 
steamers. 

I do not see therefore that our reverence for the apostle 
Paul will be in the least degree abated if we think of him 
as supplying himself and his companions with figs and other 
fruits, things essential to health and comfort in a long voyage, 
more especially to one who had suffered an imprisonment of 
two years. 

The purpose, whatever it was, for which the vessel stopped 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 221 

at Sidon having been accomplished, she set sail again. Here 
occurs (Acts 27 : 4) an expression which it is important we 
should rightly understand. It is said, "we sailed under 
Cyprus." Assuming it to mean "under the lee of Cyprus" 
(Revised Version), that is, in the smooth water which would 
be produced by having the island between the ship and the 
wind, the question arises, from what direction was the wind 
blowing so that it was said, " we sailed under Cyprus, because 
the winds were contrary "? 

Much has been written on this subject, and until recently 
the general impression has been that the wind was from the 
east, and that "under Cyprus" meant to the south of that 
island. 

There are two reasons for supposing this theory to be er- 
roneous. The first is that it was known that at this season 
of the year, August, the prevailing winds were from the west 
or northwest ; and the second reason is that it is said, in the 
next verse (v. 5), " when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia 
and Pamphylia." Now the Greek word which is translated 
over should have been translated through or across ; and as 
the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia must have been to the north 
of Cyprus, that is, between the island and the mainland, if 
they sailed through it they must have passed round the 
eastern end of the island, thus protecting themselves from 
the force of the west wind ; and so running up into the bay 
of Issus, they thus had the shelter of the shore, which here 
runs northeast and southwest. 

There is still another reason for this course in the well- 
known fact that between this island and the continent, espec- 
ially near the northern shore, the currents are from east to 
west. 

From this point I suppose it was necessary to begin that 



222 OLD STOEIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

tedious process of sailing, now happily overcome by the use 
of steam, which the sailors call " beating to windward/' 
which means sailing toward that point from which the wind 
is blowing. The vessel tacks from side to side in her zigzag 
course, keeping her head as near to the wind as possible, 
without allowing her sails to flap by keeping too close to the 
wind. 

In this manner I suppose they sailed through the sea of 
Cilicia and Pamphylia, having Cyprus on their left and 
"hugging the shore " off the mainland, where they found 
smooth water. 

Nothing else important occurs, that is mentioned, until 
they reach the port of Myra in Lycia, then a place of much 
consequence and population, as may be inferred from the 
magnitude of its ruins, especially its theatre, but now a des- 
olate waste. This is one of the " coasts of Asia " referred to 
in the second verse of the chapter. 

Here it became necessary to change ships, for the vessel in 
which they had made the voyage thus far was bound to 
Adramyttium, a port far up the JEgean and quite out of the 
direct way to Italy ; unless indeed it had been the intention 
of the centurion to make the journey by land over the famous 
road called the Via Egnatia. This road the Romans had 
built across Greece to Asia, connecting their eastern posses- 
sions through the port of Brundusium, now Brindisi, on the 
Adriatic. This, however, is not probable, for it involves 
several changes of conveyance, adding of course largely to 
the cost of the transportation of prisoners. The centurion 
found here an Egyptian corn-ship sailing direct to Italy ; and 
this would in every way be the safest and the cheapest mode 
of travel. 

But now the question comes up, why was an Egyptian ves- " 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 223 

sel, laden with wheat and bound to Italy, so far out of her 
course ? What was she doing here ? For her direct course 
would have been far to the south of Crete. 

The answer is, that with the prevailing westerly winds and 
without the aid of quadrant and compass and sailing charts, 
so indispensable now, she had been driven out of her course, 
and finding herself among the islands had sought their pro- 
tection and favorable currents, just as PauPs ship had. She 
seems to have been a larger ship than that in which the 
apostle had come from Csesarea, for she was able to accommo- 
date the centurion and his party in addition to her own crew 
and cargo. We learn, later on, that the whole number of 
persons on this ship was two hundred and seventy-six ; and 
no small vessel could carry such a number with any degree 
of safety. 

They now proceeded on their voyage in this vessel, which 
we may suppose was somewhat crowded. We cannot help 
asking a question or two as to the accommodations there may 
have been. Saloon passengers in a modern steamship, who 
are provided with the luxurious table of a first-class hotel, 
and whose sleeping apartments, although not large, certainly 
are well furnished, when they look in upon the steerage 
passengers and see their crowded condition, their hard 
benches, their untidily-served meals, their total want of 
privacy and retirement, may reflect that the apostle Paul was, 
in all probability, much less comfortably lodged and fed and 
cared for than are steerage passengers coming to our shores. 

The real difficulties of the voyage began now. The winds 
were still head-winds. Por several days (oh, how long we 
consider two or three days at sea !), with frequent " tacking n 
the progress was slow ; the wind was contrary ; they were 
" beating to windward " again. Threading their way among the 



224 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

many beautiful islands that sit like gems in those bright seas, 
and stretching their course now on one tack, now on the other, 
probably anchoring at night under the lee of an island for 
safety, they were " many days " sailing a distance of perhaps 
a hundred and twenty miles, which, with favorable winds, 
they could easily have accomplished in a day or two. The 
ship had thus worked her way to Cnidus, or near that place, 
which is the extreme western cape of the southern part of 
Asia Minor. So far she had had the advantage of the 
weather-shore and smooth water and favorable currents. 
But at this point all these conditions were changed. Cnidus 
is at the entrance of the iEgean from the east, and sailing 
beyond this point to the west must be out in the open sea. 
Now they were exposed to the full force of the northwest 
wind and the long swell of the unbroken sea. It was impos- 
sible for the vessel to make headway against these adverse 
elements, and accordingly her course, which, with favorable 
winds, would have been nearly due west, was changed sud- 
denly to the southwest, to seek the shelter of the long narrow 
island of Crete, now called Candia. Having reached this 
point, "over against Salmone; and hardly passing it," the 
vessel found herself again in smooth water, and continued 
her course to the west. 

The expression in the eighth v erse, " hardly passing it," 
seems to require explanation. If the wind was from the 
northwest, and if the vessel was sailing southwest (which 
would be an easy course to take with such a wind), what 
difficulty would there be in rounding that cape ? The diffi- 
culty vanishes if we change the position of the word 
"hardly," which means "with difficulty," and say, "We 
sailed under Crete, over against Salmone, and passing it 
hardly came to a place which is called the ' Fair Havens/ " 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 225 

Now in rounding that cape the vessel's course would be 
changed from the southwest and south to the west, and, the 
wind being from the northwest, no vessel rigged as this one 
was could proceed on her course due west (which it must do 
to retain the shelter of the island) without "tacking" or 
" beating to windward/' and this was a difficult matter for 
such a vessel, although now having the advantage of smooth 
water under the lee of the island. In this manner, therefore, 
" hardly," or with difficulty, she worked her way to the har- 
bor of the Fair Havens, which is the farthest point to the 
west that a vessel with a northwest wind could reach. This 
was a good harbor only while the wind was from the north 
or northwest, and here they seem to have waited until the 
wind changed. But there was a long delay here — too long 
for the success of their plan ; for, but for these unexpected 
delays, they counted on reaching Italy before the stormy sea- 
son set in. The season was now far advanced, and navigation 
became dangerous or unsafe ; that is, so long a voyage could 
not be undertaken safely because of the prevalence of storms, 
when the clouds would obscure the sun and stars, on which 
they were so dependent for the direction of their course. 
The " fast " referred to here is the Jewish fast of expiation 
or atonement, which occurs about the time of the autumnal 
equinox, and on the 24th of September in that year, a.d. 58. 

It was at this point that Paul, by the courtesy of Julius 
the centurion, who had seen enough of him by this time to 
know that he had a clear head and sound judgment (although 
he did not take his advice), ventured to suggest that it would 
be better to remain in this harbor than to continue the voyage. 
He gave it as his conviction, formed no doubt from what he 
had seen of the working of this vessel, as well as from former 
experience, rather than from divine inspiration, that a con- 
15 



226 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

tinuance of the voyage would be followed by the loss of the 
ship and cargo and some lives. 

This statement seems to have led to a consultation between 
the centurion and the officers of the vessel, some taking the 
view of the apostle, that there was risk in so long a voyage 
so late in the season ; but a majority, who deemed the harbor 
unsafe to winter in (especially with southeast winds), favored 
the view of the centurion, with whom the owner of the vessel 
and the captain or sailing-master agreed, which was, to see 
if they could not reach the port of Phenice, a really safe 
harbor still further on their course, and if need be winter 
there. The use of the words "if by any means" (27:12) 
indicates that the majority thought that even this compar- 
atively short passage would be attended with peril. 

This harbor of Phenice was thought to be the only bay on 
that coast where a vessel could securely winter. Much has 
been written to explain the topography of the harbor, lying, 
as it is said, " toward the southwest and toward the north- 
west"; but as the ship never reached it, we need not trouble 
ourselves about it. No indentation on that coast now seems 
to answer exactly this description. 

How long they lay in the harbor of Fair Havens we do 
not know. A gentle breeze sprung up from the south, and 
before it had time to start much of a swell in the sea, which 
would have exposed them to the dangers of a lee shore, they 
set sail and rounded the cape, only three or four miles away, 
and bore off northwest for their desired haven, thirty-four 
miles distant, u hugging the shore," or, as our narrative has 
it, " sailed close by Crete." So they sailed along, with the 
wind about two points abaft the beam, with a sense of per- 
fect security, towing their little boat (they seem to have had 
but one) after them, as if they were en a holiday excursion. 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 227 

But before they had passed over probably half the distance 
the storm broke upon them. The wind is called Euroclydon 
(Revised Version, Euraquilo), which means wide wave or 
broad billow. " The Greek word is found nowhere else, and 
may be regarded, as Luke reports, as actually used by the 
sailors on board." Dr. Howson says "the name indicates 
the commotion on the sea which the wind produced." 

But where did this wind come from — from what direc- 
tion ? The narrative says " there arose against it a tempest- 
uous wind;" and we should without question say "it" meant 
the ship, except that the Greek word here is in the feminine 
gender, while the word used for the ship elsewhere is uni- 
formly neuter. I am not able to explain this quite satisfac- 
torily, but I believe the grammatical construction of the sen- 
tence will admit of the interpretation that " the wind drove 
down on us from Crete"; and with this the subsequent con- 
ditions agree. 

All bodies of water, inland as well as oceans, that are bor- 
dered by mountainous coast lines are subject to sudden and 
violent changes of wind. This was notably so in the Sea of 
Galilee, and is so in Lake George in our country, somewhat 
like Galilee. The wind which drove this vessel away from 
Crete and toward the southwest was from the northeast. It 
came rushing down the gorges in the mountains with the 
violence of a hurricane or a cyclone, and caught this vessel, 
seizing it and whirling it round as if it had been a bubble. 
She could not bear up into the wind so as to reach the har- 
bor, — that is, she could not face the wind, could not look at 
it ; an expression doubtless drawn from the practice of the 
ancients of painting an eye on each side of the bow of their 
ships. Not being able to keep the head of the vessel to the 
wind, they "let her drive"; in other words, yielding to the 



228 OLD STOKIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

force of the wind, they "gave way to it" (Revised Version), 
they were borne along to the leeward by scudding. This 
brought them in a few hours (the distance was only twenty 
miles or so) to the island of Clauda, now called Gozzo ; and 
gladly availing themselves of its protection, they rounded its 
eastern cape and again found themselves in smooth water. 
But there were no harbors here and no safe anchorage, and 
in the temporary security of this windward shore they began 
to prepare themselves in earnest to resist the fury of the 
storm. And one of the first things they did was to secure 
their little boat, which, towing astern, had doubtless very 
early in this scudding process been swamped, and thus dragged 
by her painter, and full of water, after the vessel. It seems 
that securing the boat was no easy matter. It is hardly likely 
they had davits by which they could hoist the boat to the 
deck or to the side of the vessel above the deck. If you are 
surprised at the fact that there was apparently but one boat 
for two hundred and seventy-six persons, you must remember 
that English steamers between New York and Liverpool, 
which sometimes carry a thousand persons, have only eight 
boats. It is worth saying just here that our Philadelphia 
line of steamers to Liverpool carry, in addition to the eight 
boats, life-rafts on deck sufficient to float all their crew and 
passengers. 

The process necessary to save this boat was to " lay to," 
that is, throw the ship's head to the wind by a peculiar 
adjustment of the sails which would stop her progress through 
the water. In this case it would be her "starboard" side 
which would be exposed to the wind, and the boat, swinging 
round on the "port" side and in smooth water, would be 
more easily handled. Their great anxiety to save the boat 
may indicate foreboding of the result of their voyage. No 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 229 

doubt Luke, and perhaps Paul himself, lent a hand in this 
difficult work : " we were able, with difficulty, to secure the 
boat" (Revised Version). 

The next measure of safety was one which I suppose is 
quite unusual, if not unknown, nowadays. It was done, 
however, to a British ship-of-war in battle in 1815. It was 
" undergirding the ship." The nautical term for this is 
" frapping," which means to pass four or five turns of a rope 
cable round the hull or frame of a ship, putting it under the 
bowsprit and paying it out until it comes under the beam at 
midships, where it is secured as a tourniquet, and so supports 
the vessel in a storm when there is reason to fear she is not 
strong enough to ride out the gale. The reason why modern 
ships are not so likely to need this support is owing in part 
to the difference in rig. Now, the strain on the vessel, instead 
of being mainly at one point, is divided or spread over the 
entire length by the three masts; while in ancient vessels 
there was one and sometimes only one mast, and on that the 
huge principal sail was spread, stretched out by a ponderous 
yard at the mast-head, so that the strain was most severe at 
one point rather than distributed over the vessel. We must 
remember that this vessel was caught with all her canvas set. 

Having strengthened the hull of the vessel as they best 
could, their next care was to put her in a proper condition as 
to sails to ride out the gale. In verse 17 it says, " fearing 
lest they should fall into the quicksands," they "strake sail." 
This seems a strange expression. Where were these quick- 
sands ? They were the Syrtis or sand-banks off the coast of 
Africa, not so very far away. To strike sail (or strake sail) 
does not mean to take in all sail ; this would have been to 
deprive themselves of the only means of avoiding the dan- 
ger, for a ship with no sails set is not under the control of 



230 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

the rudder. It probably means that they lowered to the 
deck the spar and rigging connected with the fairweather 
sails (topsails), if they had any. In this case perhaps it was 
the heavy yard which vessels now on the Mediterranean and 
even on the Swiss lakes carry — the lateen rig, as it is called — 
to us seeming so ponderous and clumsy, but having this ad- 
vantage at least, of being handled from the deck without 
sending men aloft, and also of being lowered in the shortest 
possible time. There was on this vessel probably a sort of 
foresail, answering somewhat the purpose of, but quite un- 
like, our jib. This sail was now probably set and the vessel 
made, as the sailors say, as snug as possible. 

Now comes the important question, which way is the vessel 
to steer ? There are but two things for a sailing-ship to do 
in a gale of wind — 

1. To scud ; that is, run before the wind. 

2. To lay to. 

The great danger from scudding is a pooping sea (this is 
especially so in a tremendous gale); that is, the great waves 
which are rolling with ever-increasing volume and violence 
on the stern of the vessel may swamp it, overwhelm it, and 
the vessel founders. In this case there was another clanger : 
twenty-four hours scudding would have brought shipwreck 
on the dreaded quicksands of Africa. 

The other process is to "lay to" — that is, lay to the wind. 
This is to put a vessel under a very small amount of sail, 
called " storm-sails." By a certain arrangement of these sails 
the head of the vessel is brought as* near as possible to the 
wind, and all forward motion is stopped, the only care being 
to keep her from falling into the trough of the sea. Then 
she simply drifts to leeward, and they, as Luke writes, " were 
driven." You can see now that with a northeast wind the 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 231 

vessel, with her head about north and making no forward 
progress, would drift nearly due west. Now the tempest 
poured its full force upon them. They were away from the 
shelter of the island ; they were out on the open sea. Night 
came on ; they were drifting helplessly, but the morning light 
might bring a lull in the gale. No ; it increased, if possible. 
What remained to be done? Why, to lighten the ship, as 
the sailors did far back in Jonah's time, by throwing a part 
of the cargo overboard ; but happily we do not hear that 
they proposed to throw Paul overboard as being in some way 
the cause of the storm. So the precious cargo, the golden 
Egyptian wheat which they were carrying to Italy, must go 
over into the sea, and the larger part — that most easily got 
at — went overboard. But the vessel still labored ; the leak 
which the undergirding was intended to stop still went on. 
She must be still further relieved or she would founder ; so 
on the third day " we cast out with our own hands the tack- 
ling of the ship." What was this tackling? It probably 
means the extra spars and rigging which all vessels carried, 
requiring the help of Luke and his companions to handle, 
and which would give some such relief as vessels of war 
obtain in dire extremity by throwing their guns overboard. 
But a late writer, Dean Plumptre, says that the Greek word 
for tackling has a wider range than the English, and means 
beds, personal luggage, and movables of all kinds. Even 
these the sailors were ready to sacrifice for personal safety. 

" And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, 
and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be 
saved was then taken away." 

No one who has never been in a leaking ship in a long- 
continued gale can know what is suffered under such circum- 
stances. " The strain both of mind and body, the incessant 



232 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

demand for the labor of all the crew, the terror of the pas- 
sengers, the hopeless working at the pumps, the laboring of 
the ship's frame, the creaking of the ropes, the gale moaning 
through them, the driving of the storm, the benumbing effect 
of the cold and the wet, make up a scene of no ordinary con- 
fusion, anxiety and fatigue. But now these evils were much 
aggravated by the continued overclouding of the sky." 

This condition continued for some days. What little con- 
ception can we have of this long agony ! There was no sun- 
shine, there w^as no starlight. The leak was gaining on 
them; this is shown by their repeated " lightening" of the 
ship. An ancient ship with no compass and with few and 
insufficient instruments, and not able to see the sun or stars, 
had no means of keeping a reckoning, and their situation 
became almost one of despair. They could not tell how long 
the gale would continue ; they did not know where the near- 
est land lay, nor whether they could reach it if they did 
know. So passed ten days. How could they cook food 
under such circumstances ? Think of the sea sickness, when 
even the most delicately-prepared food becomes nauseous ! 
They were nearly famished, and almost worn out with con- 
stant w r atching and working at the pumps. What cries must 
have gone up from those terrified sailors and soldiers, "every 
man to his god," as in Jonah's time ! Where was the apostle 
during all this time, and where were his companions ? Doubt- 
less helping as they best could the sailors in their extremity. 
But Paul must have been much in communion with God ; 
for one night there came an angel to him with a message, 
and the message was for the whole ship's crew. He lost no 
time in communicating it. He stood among the terrified, 
exhausted seamen ; he reminded them of his advice, given 
before, that they should not have left Crete. " Sirs," he said, 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 233 

" you should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed 
from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And 
now ... be of good cheer"; the ship will be lost, but your 
lives will be saved. Who is this that can say such things, 
and with an air of such authority? How does he know? 
He is no sailor ; can he, this prisoner, be a prophet ? " For 
there stood by me this night," said he, answering their ques- 
tioning looks, " the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I 
serve, saying, Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought before 
Caesar : and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with 
thee." 

What angel was this ? Did he appear in a bodily form ? 
Did he speak with an audible voice? All these are ques- 
tions which are natural and easy to ask, but not so easy to 
answer. The boldness of the apostle's declaration challenges 
our admiration : " God, whose I am, and whom I serve." 
Christian brethren, is anything finer, grander, than this? 
God, whose I am, and whom I serve ! And the force of the 
original word means not merely a religious life, simple and 
beautiful as this is, but external acts of worship and homage 
and service. This was Paul's idea of religion : not in a secret 
service, however conscientious and faithful, but in outward 
acts and with God's people. And think of his reward ! Lo, 
God hath given thee all that sail with thee. They should 
all be saved for his sake ; the words mean no less than this. 

Sailers, however reckless in the absence of danger, are 
open to religious impressions, and we may imagine that they 
gathered round the apostle on the deck of the ship and list- 
ened to his words as an admonition and encouragement from 
the other world, and that they were thus nerved for the toil 
and difficulty which were immediately before them. 

" Howbeit," he adds, " we must be cast upon a certain 



234 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

island." This seems to be a prophecy, following, as it does, 
the communication from God by the angel. But he may not 
have known the name of the island. 

Now the fourteenth night had come, and they were still 
driven by the violence of the gale (of which we hear of no 
abatement) " up and down in Adria." During all this time — 
these fourteen days and nights — the vessel had drifted to lee- 
ward, making no headway whatever, the hawsers undergird- 
ing her still further hindering that movement. Seamen say 
that a ship like this and under like circumstances would drift 
about thirty-six miles in twenty-four hours ; and according 
to this calculation, a ship starting late in the evening from 
Clauda would find herself about midnight on the fourteenth 
day within a few miles of the ' island of Malta (about five 
hundred miles). So about midnight the sailors thought they 
were approaching the land, or, as seamen say — measuring 
everything from their ship — "the land drew near." How 
they made this discovery is not stated, but in all probability 
they were made aware of it by that most appalling of all 
sounds, breakers ahead ; and then, straining their eyes 
through the gloom, on the left they saw the white surge 
of the foam which the shoaling water threw up, and heard 
beyond the roar of the waves as they broke on the rocky 
coast. Here were new terrors. They cast the lead ; twenty 
fathoms ! and a little later another cast of the lead ; fifteen 
fathoms ! shoaling rapidly. And then, though they could 
see nothing but the boiling surge, they must have heard with 
frightful distinctness, over the lee bow, the roar of the waves 
against the rocks, only a quarter of a mile distant. 

There was but one thing left now to do, and that was to 
anchor ; they might hope to hold the leaking ship until day- 
light. So they "cast four anchors out of the stern," and, in 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 235 

those plaintive and touching words which go to our hearts as 
we read them, " wished for the day." O ye who in agony 
of body or mind have counted the weary hours of the night 
by the slow-moving hands of the clock, looking and longing 
for the first streak of the long-delayed morning, or who have 
watched by the bed of some dear one in mortal agony through 
the long night when it seemed as if the day would never 
break, ye know the full force of those most expressive words, 
"and wished for the day"! 

But why anchor bv the stern ? Probablv to check the 
ship the sooner; or so that the bow might be nearest the 
shore when it should become necessary to cut her adrift the 
next morning. It was not an unusual method of anchoring 
in ancient vessels ; and even as late as Nelson's clay, in the 
battle of Copenhagen the English ships were anchored by 
the stern, and did good service in that position, and Lord 
Xelson said after the battle that he had been led to adopt 
that plan because he had just been reading the twenty-sev- 
enth chapter of the Acts. As we read of four anchors, we 
must remember that their anchors were not as heavv as ours, 
or they would not have needed so many. It seems, further 
on, that they had more than four. The British sailing direc- 
tions say that the anchorage is generally very good here, and 
while the cables hold there is no danger, as the anchors will 
never start. But the danger here was that the ship might 
" go down at her anchors/' 

And now occurred that incident, unhappily not peculiar to 
that time, which but for the watchful foresight of the apostle 
might have ended in much loss of life. In the darkness and 
pouring rain and in the confusion, the vessel heaving and 
tossing at her anchors, a mutinous plot was formed by the 
sailors to desert the vessel and make for the shore in the 



236 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

boat. They lowered the boat under the pretence of laying 
additional anchors out at the bow to steady her. No sailor 
could have been imposed upon by this artifice, and it is there- 
fore probable that the captain and his officers might have 
been in the plot; for Paul, who saw through it, "said to the 
centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, 
ye cannot be saved." If these sailors abandon the ship, how 
can you soldiers, how can we landsmen, manage the ship ? 

" We need not embarrass ourselves with the question how 
far the divine promise was dependent on the contingency thus 
specified." Under this declaration, " except these abide in 
the ship, ye cannot be saved," the soldiers, obeying promptly 
the appeal of the apostle (see his tact in speaking to them), 
with their short swords " cut off the ropes of the boat, and 
let her fall off," and away she went in the darkness, and in a 
few minutes doubtless was dashed in pieces on the rocks. 

Then, as the night passed, Paul appealed to the men to 
take food, assuring them that they should all be saved, re- 
minding them that in the long strain and watch, the contin- 
ued look-out, they had taken nothing. The English words 
" taken nothing" are a little more extravagant than the Greek 
justifies. It means that they had had scant food — only what 
was absolutely necessary to keep life in them ; for it is plainly 
impossible that men should go a fortnight literally eating 
nothing. This is not an uncommon expression. Appian 
speaks of an army which for twenty days had neither food 
nor sleep; which must mean that they had neither a full 
meal nor a whole night's sleep. 

And now Paul " took bread, and gave thanks to God in 
presence of them all." I have no doubt he said his "grace" 
in an audible voice. He did what every man at the head 
of a family ought to do : he asked the blessing of God on 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 237 

his food ; and he did this in presence of them all — captain, 
sailors, centurion, soldiers, passengers, prisoners, all of them ; 
and his words of good cheer, his assurance of safety for every 
one, his appeal to God in the blessing asked, — all these show 
how remarkable an influence he had acquired over all who 
sailed with him, for in those desperate circumstances they 
were all of good cheer. After they had eaten and were re- 
freshed, they found that either the ship was still leaking 
badly or that it was prudent to still further lighten her so 
that she might get nearer the shore on which she must finally 
be driven ; so they cast out the remainder of the cargo into 
the sea. This made the third time they resorted to this ex- 
treme measure. Now it was daybreak, and as they looked 
off toward the shore they did not know where they were. 
There was no lighthouse, no signal, no familiar headland. 
Although that island was well known to navigators at that 
time, this part of it was not well known. The great harbor, 
now called Valetta, is away from thai point. They saw, how- 
ever, that they were not far from the mouth of a bay some two 
miles wide ; and into this bay, rock-bound as it was, they 
saw a creek running, with a sandy beach, and they determ- 
ined to head the ship for this beach, hoping that the depth 
of water would enable them to drive her head on ; in other 
words, to " beach " her. 

Having determined on the point to be reached, they re- 
sorted to the necessary steps. First they took up the anchors. 
It seems strange that they should care to secure the anchors 
when they knew that the vessel would inevitably go to pieces. 
It should read, " when they had cleared away " or " cut the 
anchors," as you read in the margin. (Revised Version, 
" casting off/') 

The next thing was to loose the rudder bands. The mod- 



238 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

em rudder was not known then. Vessels were steered by 
huge sweeps, one on each side of the stern, somewhat as river 
rafts of lumber are steered now. When the vessel lay at 
anchor or at the wharf, these rudders or sweeps were lifted 
out of the water and secured to the vessel's side. So now, as 
the vessel was to be put in motion, the rudder bands were 
loosed and dropped into the sea to guide the ship when she 
got under way. Next the mainsail, or rather foresail, for the 
mainyard had been thrown overboard, w r as hoisted to the wind, 
and the vessel (the gale still continuing) was headed for the 
shore. In a few minutes she struck " into a place where two 
seas met," a channel not more than one hundred yards wide, 
between the island of Salmonetta and the mainland of Malta. 
She struck, burying her bow in the sand or mud, but the 
stern of the vessel being exposed to the violence of the waves 
was soon broken up. 

Before this final catastrophe, however, the atrocious sugges- 
tion was made by the soldiers that the prisoners should be 
killed, lest they should swim out and escape ! But the cen- 
turion wished to save Paul, although he seems not to have 
cared for the other prisoners; or, possibly, feeling that he 
was responsible for Paul's life, inasmuch as he was bound to 
deliver him at Rome, he kept the soldiers from their purpose, 
and saved the lives of the helpless prisoners. The vessel was 
rapidly breaking up, she was going to pieces, and the com- 
mand was given by the centurion (military discipline was 
firm to the last) that all who could swim should jump into 
the sea and get to the land as best they could ; and the rest, 
some on boards, planks from the decks as they were detached 
by the breaking up, and others on some of the things from 
the ship, pieces of the bulwarks, anything that w T ould float, 
reached the land. What a scene of confusion and terror that 



THE VOYAGE AXD SHIPWRECK. 239 

must have been ! A ship grinding to pieces in the sea, her bow 
embedded in the sand, not run up on the beach, the waves 
breaking all around her, all over her, her stern going to pieces, 
the passengers and crew snatching at anything loose they could 
lay hands on, some struggling in the water round the vessel, 
others clinging to the wreck till the last, others fighting their 
way through the surf as it broke on the beach, but all at last 
getting safe to shore, in fulfillment of Paul's prediction that 
not a hair should fall from the head of one of them. "And 
so it came to pass, that they escaped alJ safe to land." 

If you should forget everything else said in this chapter, 
remember this : that God is everywhere ; that a human life, 
that your life, is of great value in his sight ; that what seem 
to us as the incidents or the accidents of life are a part of his 
providence, a part of his great plan for the good of men ; 
that no incident is too small for his notice, no act too small 
for his approbation, if a right act; that his power is un- 
limited, he holds the winds in his hands, " even the winds 
and the sea obey him ;" that he never loses sight of his 
people; that he saves some for the sake of others; that he 
can send his angel down to stand by the sleeping couch of 
his servants, not only on the land, but can reach the prayer- 
ful one tossed in his uneasy berth in the rocking ship on the 
ocean ; that though for many days no sun nor stars appear, 
he can bring light out of darkness and hope out of despair ; 
and that he is just as willing to save you now as he was to 
save his apostle in the day of his peril. You cannot hope 
that an angel will appear to you in a vision, but if you, 
like Paul, serve God in outward and visible acts of worship 
(so I explain the words), as w T ell as in the secrecy of your 
own hearts, God's Spirit w T ill dwell with you constantly and 
forever. 



But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath 
served with me in the gospel.— To the Philippians. 



To all — to every one of you : take heed how ye hear ; take heed of the 
things you have heard, lest perchance you drift away from them. — Farrar. 



Even a boy, then, can do at school the duty of a saint ; because even a 
boy can do what is right, and shame the devil ; because even a boy can 
boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake. — Farrar. 



Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. — 
To Timothy. 



240 



CHAPTER XX. 

PAUL AND TIMOTHY. 

A long time ago, an old man, a Christian minister, wrote 
a letter to a young man who was so dear to him that he often 
spoke of him as his son, his child. 

The young man had been carefully brought up by a mother 
and grandmother, and had been converted to Christianity by 
the old man's teaching and by the Spirit of God. So he 
wrote to him and spoke of him as his son, his true son, be- 
cause he had been the means of bringing the youth into a 
new life. The young man had now become a minister him- 
self. The apostle, his spiritual father, sits down to write him 
a letter. Paul was in Macedonia, or in Corinth ; Timothy 
was probably in Ephesus. The sea rolled between them. 
They did not know that they should ever meet again in this 
world. The old man had been an apostle, a missionary, thirty 
or forty years. He had endured almost all kinds of hard- 
ship ; he had met with the roughest, the most cruel treatment 
from the people to whom he had preached the gospel, and he 
knew quite well the hardships which his young friend, his son 
in the faith, would have to suffer. 

So he writes him a letter. He has many things to say, if 
they could only meet face to face ; but if this may not be, he 
will at least say as much as he can in writing. 

He wants him to be a good minister of Jesus, nourished, 
made strong, by good doctrine and sound works. He tells 
him to turn away from all foolishness, and to be faithful in 
reminding his brethren of the good things which they too 
had learned from the apostle through the Spirit. He tells 
16 241 



242 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

him, further, not to let the people among whom he lives 
and teaches, especially believers, despise him because he is so 
young a man ; but he must be an example to them all in his 
speech, in his general behavior, in the spirit of his life, in his 
love, his faith, his purity. 

After saying or writing some other things, which need not 
be repeated here, he rather abruptly writes these words: 
" Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine," or teach- 
ing, " for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them 
that hear thee." 

It seemed a most natural thing that Paul should desire to 
say or write good words to Timothy, for Timothy w T as his own 
son in the faith ; and among all his converts, and among all 
the friends who gathered round him wherever he went, there 
was no one so dear to him, no one so likeminded, as Timothy. 

The apostle Paul had been in prison before this, and had 
barely escaped with his life. His faithful preaching had led 
to his arrest and confinement in Qesarea, and his transfer from 
that city to Rome for trial, on his own appeal. He was 
acquitted, and was again at liberty and again at w T ork. He 
knew not what the end might be; probably he expected 
sooner or later to be again arrested, and most probably con- 
victed and put to death. And so it was indeed at last. He 
was put to death. And as the grand old apostle charged 
the young Timothy to be faithful in all things, to be bold 
and fearless in telling people of their faults and their duties, 
the rich and the poor alike, he must have thought that the 
young minister would have very much the same trials, the 
same experiences, the stonings, the beatings with rods, the 
hungerings, the thirstings, the cold, the imprisonments, that 
he himself had suffered. 

Sitting in my library and trying to think of some things 



PAUL AND TIMOTHY. 243 

proper to write to young people, I seemed to forget the scenes 
about me. I imagined that I was in the midst of a congre- 
gation of the young, and looking into their faces as one does 
who addresses such an audience. And I fancied that they 
were looking and listening with deep interest to what I was 
saying. Then I thought, .what words can I say to them which 
will help them, which will do them good? And I wondered 
for a moment what words the apostle Paul himself would say 
if he were in my place and surrounded by such an audience. 
If you could see him as he w r as about the time he wrote this 
letter to Timothy, you would see a man far advanced in life, 
but probably looking much older than he really was, because 
his life was a very hard one ; his form not tall and straight, 
but most probably stooping, bowed with cares and hardships, 
and almost at the end of his journey. I do not know what 
his features were, neither do I know whether his eyes were 
keen and bright, or weak with natural infirmity and stream- 
ing w T ith tears, as some have supposed. But I know that his 
face was full of earnestness, for his heart was full of love ; 
and I shall try (with becoming reverence) to imagine what he 
would feel and what he would say in such circumstances. I 
think he might say something like this, looking down into 
your faces : 

" My young friends, I have come a long distance to speak 
to you. I was once a school-boy, as you are now ; I had a 
sister, such as many of you have ; I had parents who trained 
me religiously in the faith of their fathers. I was a Jewish 
boy, and was born and lived in my early boyhood in the city 
of Tarsus, an old city on the banks of a swift, cold river. 
Back of the city, across the wide plain, was a range of snow- 
clad mountains, on which the golden light of the sun fell 
morning and evening. Within sight, in another direction, 



244 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

was the wide sea. In this city, famous for its great schools, 
I spent my boyhood until twelve years old, going to s.chool 
as you do. Then, at that early age, I was sent across that 
great sea to Jerusalem to attend another school under a fam- 
ous teacher. Here I grew up to manhood, as you are rapidly 
growing. I had all the temptations that you have. I was 
proud, self-willed, stubborn. I thought I was religious ; and, 
so far as doing certain things, saying my prayers morning and 
evening, complying with the forms of religion, I was relig- 
ious. But I was stern and hard, unwilling that other people 
should be religious except in my way. When I was about 
twenty-five or thirty years of age, a new religious teacher 
appeared. He was a plain man, poor, and with a few friends 
who followed him. He came from a little village of no 
reputation, far up in the hills of Galilee. His teachings were 
so unlike those of the Pharisees, to which party I belonged, 
that we set him down as an impostor, although no one could 
say a word against his pure life and his wholesome teaching. 
At first we cared little about him, we despised him ; but when 
he began to do such wonderful works — healing the sick, 
opening the eyes of the blind, and curing the lame and even 
raising the dead — the people began to follow him in great 
numbers, and we feared him. We even went so far as to 
bribe one of his disciples to betray him ; and one moonlight 
night we followed him out of the city into the olive garden, 
where his betrayer said we should find him, and there we 
arrested him. We brought him back to the city ; we took 
him to the governor's house ; we made our charges against 
him (his friends all deserted him) ; and early next morning, 
after allowing the Roman soldiers to strike him, to spit in 
his face and scourge him with rods, we led him outside of 
the city, and put him to death by crucifixion. Such was our 



PAUL AND TIMOTHY. 245 

hatred of him and his new religion ! But this was not the 
end of it. The rocky grave in which he was buried was 
found open on the third day, and the body was gone ! The 
soldiers who watched the grave said that while they were 
asleep his disciples had come and stolen away his body ; but 
there were other people who said that an angel had come down 
from heaven and rolled away the stone from the grave. 

" But this was not all. His disciples all became preachers ; 
and though we did all we could to prevent it, they went about 
over the land preaching everywhere, so that multitudes of the 
people left the old religion and took up with the new. Then 
we began to persecute them in every way in our power. We 
hunted them everywhere, we dragged them from their houses, 
we punished them often even in their synagogues. One of 
their number, Stephen, and one of the boldest, we arrested 
and brought before the court, and charged him with teaching 
the new religion. The high priest asked him what he had 
to say in defence of the charges, and he replied in an address 
which ought to have convinced us that he was doing no harm, 
but was helping the people to believe the Scriptures aright ; 
but he grew very earnest toward the last, and said such cut- 
ting things to us that we were filled with rage. We inter- 
rupted him in his defence, for his words cut us to the heart; 
and as he looked up to heaven and said he saw the Son of 
man, this Jesus whom he had preached, standing on the 
right hand of God, we filled the air with our shouts; we 
stopped our ears to keep from hearing any more; w T e ran 
upon him with one accord ; we hurried him out of the tem- 
ple lest the holy place should be defiled with his blood ; Ave 
carried him beyond the city wall ; we stoned him to death. 
I had given my vote against him ; I held the clothes of those 
who did the bloody deed ; I consented to it ; I heard his 



246 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

dying words, and they seem to have been ringing in my ears 
ever since : ' Lord, lay not this sin to their charge/ i Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit/ But the persecution went on, and 
I was foremost among those who hunted the Christians to 
death. After a while it was determined to follow these peo- 
ple to other cities, and I was selected to go to the distant 
city of Damascus. I was more than willing to go. I made 
up a caravan. I left Jerusalem behind me and made my 
way to the north. The hills stretched out before me; the 
broad valley of the Jordan lay to the right ; beyond the Sea 
of Galilee were the snow-capped mountains of Lebanon, and 
then the dreary way over the rolling desert toward the city 
of Damascus. But just before we reached the city, about 
noon, under the bright sunshine, suddenly a light burst upon 
us brighter than even that bright sun, and dazzling as a flash 
of lightning. I fell to the earth, blinded ; I heard a voice 
which I had never heard before, but which I knew to be a 
divine voice ; I saw a form which I knew to be that of Jesus 
Christ ; I arose humbled and subdued ; I was changed, con- 
verted, turned round, ready and willing to obey the word of 
Jesus, whatever it might be. Still blinded, I was led into 
the city, and there, in my darkness, I spent three days with- 
out food or drink. Then a man of God, Ananias, came to me 
and put his hands upon me, and the scales fell from my eyes. 
I was filled with the Holy Ghost; I arose and was baptized. 

" This is my story," he might say, " and 1 have come to 
tell it to you, as I have told it to many others, in the hope 
that I may persuade you to turn from your evil ways, as I 
did, to believe in the same Jesus, and be saved." 

I think the apostle might say some such things to you. I 
am sure he would desire, most earnestly, to say something 
which would do you good. 



PAUL AND TIMOTHY. 247 

What shall I say? I cannot give you my experience, 
as he did. I have the same kind of interest in you that 
lie would have had ; and as I write these words and know 
how indifferent and thoughtless some of you are, I cannot 
help saying to each one of my readers, " Take heed unto 
thyself." And I say this to you because many of you are 
at that age when you are not much inclined to take heed. 
You do not like to be serious and thoughtful ; you are 
rather inclined to be indifferent and thoughtless. If I knew 
that one of you was exposed to that danger, I should surely 
say, " Take heed ; be careful." If I were sending you out 
on an errand on some morning when the pavements were 
covered with ice, I should certainly say, " Take heed ; take 
care of your steps." 

Xow I know that your journey through life is beset with 
perils. In every street in the great city are houses where 
" fire-water," as the Indians call it, is sold by the glass; and 
you will find companions who will invite you to go in and 
be treated to a glass. " Take heed to thyself" ; do not go ; 
as you value your life, do not go. There are, if possible, 
even worse places than drinking-saloons, and you will be 
invited to go into them. Do not go. Those houses are the 
gateways of hell, and you cannot go into them and be inno- 
cent. " Take heed to thyself." Never mind what others 
may do that it is not right to do ; do not let them lead you 
astray. You are to take heed to yourself. If others are 
determined to go in the broad ways of sin and folly, do not 
let them drag you with them. "Take heed to thyself." 
You must take care of your health, that you do not injure 
it ; you must take care of your time, that you do not waste 
it ; you must take care of your mind, and improve it ; you 
must take care of your character, that you do not ruin it ; 



248 OLD STORIES WITH NEW LESSONS. 

you must take care of your soul, or you will lose it. Oh, 
take heed, take heed to thyself! 

And now, what do you think, — and what effect will these 
solemn sentences have upon you ? Will you let the matter 
pass away from your minds and think no more of it? You 
have heard, as from himself, the story of the great apostle, 
and you saw how he turned away from the course he w T as 
pursuing, to begin a new life in the service of God. What 
do you think of such a man, and what do you intend to do ? 

I can say that you will never be reached as Paul was. 
You will never see that wonderful light which he saw, and 
which struck him blind. You will never hear that voice 
which he heard, whose tones crushed and melted him to the 
earth. No miracle will be wrought in your case ; no super- 
natural vision may reach you, or move any one to go to you. 
No laying on of hands, no falling of scales from the eyes, no 
three days of darkness and fasting and silence, is necessary to 
lead you to repentance and faith. Yet, though no voice that 
you can hear with the outward ear has called you, you have 
probably, every one of you, heard in your hearts the divine 
voice calling upon you to repent and believe. You have list- 
ened, but you have not obeyed. Again and again you have 
heard the call, but you have felt that it was not loud enough, 
and you have thought that if God meant you to be a Chris- 
tian now, he would arouse you by a louder call and move 
you by a more tremendous appeal. 

It may never be so. I dare not say it will not ; but I do 
say that you are in danger of provoking God by saying or 
thinking that he must use other means than he is now using 
if he wishes to save you. I almost tremble as I say these 
words to you, for I fear they may be the echo of your own 
thoughts. 



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